This cannot be upvoted hard enough. Education would reform itself overnight if teachers were hired from the top third of high school classes, not the bottom two

This cannot be upvoted hard enough. Education would reform itself overnight if teachers were hired from the top third of high school classes, not the bottom two thirds, and paid salaries that started ~$70k and reached ~$100k in five years if they were good. Students struggle because you have to be a saint or an idiot to teach under the conditions currently imposed. We don't have nearly enough of the former, and way too many of the latter. I have a really hard time imagining that brain-dead curriculum boards and mediocre administrators would sustain their death grip on a profession suddenly flooded with really sharp, well paid, professionals.