I don't know what government teachers think. We pay them to do a job and all we hear is bitching. If they don't like the pay, if they don't like the kids, if they don't like the parents, they should go do something else. A member of any other occupation who blamed the customer for their failure would be out of business in a week.
Schools back then taught the "three R s" and not much else. If we measure schools today by those standards then it looks as if they do a pretty good job.
My grandmother started her 50-year career in NYC Public School teaching in 1912. It was very interesting and informative to hear her talk about what it was like, and how it changed (of course, 1962 looks like paradise compared to now, but the adverse trends which have brought us this low were well-developed by then).
Grandma always thought that what she was doing in the Lower East Side public schools of 1912-1940 was making Americans.
A few more teachers like her would do us a world of good.
Fanny Dorothea Butt, nee Wolff, 1894-1991 R.I.P.