I know this is a little OT, but as a teacher, (my wife is Guidance at one of the local High Schools) and coming from an Education family (father was teacher, and principal, and sister is a teacher), I can say that there are plenty of things to be upset about public education. Unfortunately most people don't really know enough about what goes on in the average class room to know what that is. I hear stories about how the US Education system compares to others around the world, horror stories about poor classroom management, how poorly kids score on tests, etc. Some truth to those tales, but as Paul Harvey says, now for the rest of the story.
If you want to compare schools in the US to other nations you need to know that most other nations "track" their students. That means that at an early age students have to declare or be placed in their "track" early. That means that they would either pick a vocation to learn and to into, or if they are tested to be smart enough, they would be ok'd to go into more of a college bound track. That means by 4th or 5th grade students begin to get a more narrow focus to their education. Those who are vocational tracked would get life skills, practical type education (these are the majority of students) and the College track students would get more advanced and faster moving more advance curriculum. This means smaller more motivated, high achieving classes. Unlike the US who tries to educate everyone in everything to the same level.
As for the poor classroom management, well yes there are many teachers who cannot handle a class, but their are many of the students who come from families who don't particularly care about education, discipline, decent behavior, becoming a successful member of society, etc. I work in a decent school and for the month of Feb. I spent a little over 12 hours in disciplinary meetings, or handling significant disciplinary problems. Having students miss large chunks of class time for no particular reason, such as mom forgot to wake me up, so I missed the bus...... for four days (Yes that was an actual excuse I got last month) are quite common. I spent an average of 20 min. a day putting together "make up" work sheets, for students who missed class. In the first two and a half months of this year I had 6 students move in and lost 4 students. 3 of those 4 were amoung the 6 students that moved in.
Lots of other issues as well, you have our 1/2 inch deep 1/2 mile wide curriculum, social issues such as dealing with raging hormones, teaching politeness and manners, personal heigene, parents with unrealisticly high expectations, parents who don't care about education at all, Government Involvement/Mandates that repackage the same old ideas under a new label, and then change all of the paperwork/forms/computer programs so that you have to learn how to do your job all over again. Drug use, teen pregnancy, kids coming to school hungry, sleepy, scared, etc. The job now includes being mom, dad, therapist, friend, and in your spare time you try to teach. Many teachers hate the union but the good ones ARE NOT paid or compensated in a fair way. The union helps that, but it also helps those who don't deserve it.
Long rant, sounds like I am complaining and I am really not. I love my job, helping the kids and I have no regets leaving corporate America to teach. It was the best decision I ever made.