...our own experiences in the public school system, is that the main problem with the education system in the U.S. today is the home environment that many kids are raised in. Said more bluntly, I don't really believe the main issue is wirh the schools at all; rather, it's the fact that many kids are already set up to fail before they even start kindergarten. Don't get me wrong - I'm not a fan at all of some of the nonsense that's being pushed these days; but when it comes to overall academic performance, in my opinion it is completely unrealistic to expect teachers to overcome 5 years of parental failure when they're only able to spend ~6 hours a day with kids for ~9 months out of the year. I'm not sure that the human species has ever been as collectively stupid as it is in 2022, and unfortunately many of the stupid people are breeding and are passing their stupidity on to their children, either directly, or through their absence and lack of involvement in their children's lives. As far as I'm concerned, until the majority of parents recognize the importance of education in their own lives as well as in the lives of their children, things aren't going to get much better. And that's not the fault of teachers.