Speaking as someone who recently finishing high school (graduated in 2000) I can there are a lot of teachers who really care. But, as Chris says, they are largely being forced out of the education "business." Quite frankly, "the powers that be" do not want people who can think for themselves, because thinking for yourself will ultimately lead to questioning authority.

I went to public school in Texas until 7th grade. My understanding of the way things worked there at the time is that the schools with the highest mean scores on certain standardized tests were given the most funding. Thus, the schools I went to, mostly in small towns with poor economies, spent most of their time teaching kids how to fill in circles carefully and make educated guesses.

I moved to Wyoming while I was in 7th grade, and education was much different there. There was no state standardized testing and preparing students for work and\or college were the main goals of most teachers. During my junior year, the state finally created a state standardized test and things changed immediately. Suddenly teachers were being accused of doing a poor job of teaching. And naturally, the administration began to change the requirements of the curriculum to emphasize standardized testing skills. Fortunately I was finished with all my graduation requirements and spent the rest of my high school career taking courses I wanted to take. But now the graduation requirements are different and the classes are different. Electives are being cut, and teachers’ jobs are being threatened. Some of the best teachers are leaving. Some of the younger ones are moving into other careers, the older ones retiring.

In school I had few problems with teachers, most of my problems came from the administration who insisted on strict adherence to pointless rules that often conflicted with education. For example, arriving in class three seconds after the bell rang would land you a conversation with the assistant principal that took up more of your class time than you missed being late. As near as I could tell no one in my high school’s administration gave a rat’s ass about education, they were interested in money and conformity.