I live in an upper middle class suburb of Chicago. I am sure our suburb has a facsimile in every American city. My kids go to public schools. But they don’t learn Math, Sports or Music there. Frankly they don’t learn foreign languages either.
Most of the kids take Math at places outside of school. There are several companies that have popped up to teach math to those who have trouble with it. And also teach math to those who excel at math. Our school system is regarded as one of the top in the country. But its not. Math is taught outside school but the school takes credit.
The same is true for Music and Sports and French. Our school has German teachers who are not German, they are Russian. French is taught badly from someone who took French in college but has never lived outside this country. And everyone in the high school band and orchestra have their own private teachers. Even the golf and tennis team members all have their own private coaches. Quality is not taught in public schools.
Most of the teachers have education, history and English degrees. They simply aren’t qualified to do their jobs. We pay top dollars for our teachers but none have gone to top colleges. The only reason they are paid as high as they are is because the people around here think high pay means better teachers. And you can’t fire the teachers as soon as they become tenure. Over a hundred resumes come in for each opening. And as likely as not, the opening goes to a friend or child of a current teacher. You would think that a district who can pick the best of the best would not need to offer tenure. And would want to re-evaluate their staff every year. But no.
A lot of the same problems here in NJ, especially with match, science, and languages. The tenure is forced on us; nobody pretends that we have good teachers (they only exert themselves UNTIL tenured, then they kick back for a forty-year ride on the gravy train - making A LOT OF MONEY). They get fake additional degrees from diploma mills to drive up their pay (even if the degree is completely unrelated to what they).
The young ones in particular are horrible, since they themselves are products of a broken system. Most of my children’s learning is outside of school; in the school system if you aren’t in honors classes you’ve basically been written off..