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I don't think educators are the issue. I'm sure there'll be some benefit from having them take a few more how to teach classes and a few more math classes.

But, think about it.....does that really sound like it's gonna impact anything in a significant way?

If you've ever looked at an old McGuffy Reader or an old 6th grade graduation examination, it becomes clear that far more work was gotten from the students in days gone past.

Has the human creature changed since then? Are hearts shaped differently, are eyes in different places, are legs missing joints they used to have?

Since there's no difference in the human creature itself, then it must be something else that accounts for student's work output being far less.

I'm going to bet that teachers WANT to get more from students, but that they CANNOT get it no matter what they try. Why?

The family culture and the culture of the educational establishment BOTH prevent it is my guess.

If you've ever looked at an old McGuffy Reader or an old 6th grade graduation examination, it becomes clear that far more work was gotten from the students in days gone past.

I saw an 8th-grade math book from the late 1800's once (one of my math-professor colleages had it) and I doubt most college students would be able to work the problems.

When I taught HS Math (with a degree in Electrical Engineering) the math was no problem. I do believe one must understand a subject to teach it. That said, I want to comment on your other point that learning takes hard work.

My High School was fed from a wealthy neighborhood, a middle class neighborhood, and a poor neighborhood. We instituted a placement test and found that the wealthy kids tested into Geometry, the Middle class into Algebra, and the poor kids tested into basic math.

In looking into this further, I found the wealthy teachers gave about 14 pages of math exercises each night. (They could afford paper and had an aide to run them off). The middle class kids got about 4 pages of exercises and the poor kids got one or none.

Of course there may be other factors, like parents in the home... but the kids did test in relationship to the amount of effort that was required of them. Period. This was 20 years ago, and I suspect the standards have been slipping, but the single most important indicator of success in school is homework level.