Like the endless stream of “school reform”-ers, you’re seeing and addressing only symptoms. Your motivation is admirable, but you’re mistaken when you think the system can be salvaged by getting good people in the classrooms . . . An infusion of good people would not fix it, but merely legitimize it. Public schools are here to stay, and "the perfect is the enemy of the good". Staying outside the system is the worst of all possible options. Unless you are arguing that public schools can realistically be eliminated within the next few years, I stand by my position that we need to reduce the harm that they inflict on our children and our neighbors' children. Even if public schools staffed by conservatives would not be as positive as universal home schooling, they would be a whole lot better than the status quo.
Pollster1, you make your case well, and it's clear you've given the subject some good thought. Compulsory schooling is not reformable. The best we can hope for is, as you say, to mitigate the damage to children.
But rather than argue it further, I would encourage you both - and everyone reading - to
listen to a fellow named John Taylor Gatto. I was introduced to him many years ago by a fellow FReeper, whom I can't recall but to whom I'm deeply indebted.
I've never looked at schooling the same since. (I was an excellent student in school, and had been an firm advocate my entire life - up until I began to understand it.)