People hate teachers because they're not delivering the goods. America used to be #1. WTF is wrong with teachers, why are they letting us down? Look at how dismally the US is doing. It's all the teacher's fault, and we spend so much money on education, too, and they're just screwing it all up. That's why people hate teachers.
Except, it's not teachers' fault. Look at the corrected scores.
Finally.
However you ignore the main point in the OP:
American Students have no appreciation (culture) for education.
You could pay teachers more. You could have genius teachers. You could have the best "SYSTEM."
Students simply don't give a fuck.
But Wally and Beaver still give a fuck. It's still possible to get a good education from public schools, some school systems are excellent and their students are engaged. This though really isn't a function of schools or teachers, but of students.
As we push downward from the peaks of excellence, that's where I think we get into the territory that you're talking about. Middle class schools are running into problems due to the cultural signals that education is for nerds. Here is where teacher influence can play a part and as is usually the case, any time a feminist comes within a hundred miles of public policy, disaster and screw-ups are sure to
turn up:
The other report, "Trends in Educational Equity of Girls and Women: 2004," is from the Education Department. Between 1992 and 2002, among high school seniors, girls lost two points in reading scores and boys six points, leaving a 16-point differential in their averages on tests given by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In the fall semester of kindergarten in 1998, on a different test, girls outperformed boys by 0.9 points. By the spring semester, the difference had nearly doubled, to 1.6 points.
Although one might expect the schools to be trying hard to make reading appealing to boys, the K-12 literature curriculum may in fact be contributing to the problem. It has long been known that there are strong differences between boys and girls in their literary preferences. According to reading interest surveys, both boys and girls are unlikely to choose books based on an "issues" approach, and children are not interested in reading about ways to reform society -- or themselves. But boys prefer adventure tales, war, sports and historical nonfiction, while girls prefer stories about personal relationships and fantasy. Moreover, when given choices, boys do not choose stories that feature girls, while girls frequently select stories that appeal to boys.
Unfortunately, the textbooks and literature assigned in the elementary grades do not reflect the dispositions of male students. Few strong and active male role models can be found as lead characters. Gone are the inspiring biographies of the most important American presidents, inventors, scientists and entrepreneurs. No military valor, no high adventure. On the other hand, stories about adventurous and brave women abound. Publishers seem to be more interested in avoiding "masculine" perspectives or "stereotypes" than in getting boys to like what they are assigned to read.
At the middle school level, the kind of quality literature that might appeal to boys has been replaced by Young Adult Literature, that is, easy-to-read, short novels about teenagers and problems such as drug addiction, teenage pregnancy, alcoholism, domestic violence, divorced parents and bullying. Older literary fare has also been replaced by something called "culturally relevant" literature -- texts that appeal to students' ethnic group identification on the assumption that sharing the leading character's ethnicity will motivate them to read.
There is no evidence whatsoever that either of these types of reading fare has turned boys into lifelong readers or learners. On the contrary, the evidence is accumulating that by the time they go on to high school, boys have lost their interest in reading about the fictional lives, thoughts and feelings of mature individuals in works written in high-quality prose, and they are no longer motivated by an exciting plot to persist in the struggle they will have with the vocabulary that goes with it.
It's more important to push positive female role models even if this results in turning boys off of reading. Think about that. Social engineering is more important than education. Here is another reason that teachers are hated - they're the agents of social revolution - pushing agendas to an unreceptive audience at the EXPENSE of student learning.
So when you say that students don't give a fuck, some of the above is what they don't give a fuck about. How wants to read about a girl dealing with an alcoholic mother who hits her? Not many boys, that's for sure. They want to read about General Patton or some good war stories or spy stories or adventure stories. Socially relevant literature is on overdrive in schools compared to the old days.