Teachers are drawn from the society in which they exist. If that society is increasingly liberal, then the teachers drawn from that society would be as well. But teachers take their marching orders from their administration, and the administration now has to take THEIR marching orders from people far outside the paradigm of education, but very much within the paradigm of a lack of moral character---politicians and businessmen. Teachers do NOT take their values or marching orders from their unions unless they are a complete empty vessel. From what I heard from fellow teachers during the latest discussions of the new contract, plenty of them do not now or would ever qualify for a label of "sheeple," myself included, as the unions increasingly sell their members out and join hand in hand with the corrupt politicians against their own teacher constituents! You would have people believe that teacher unions snap their fingers and their teachers blindly obey. That is hardly the case!
It is also quite true that there has been a fundamental breakdown of the nuclear family, with moral values and character not being taught in the home. How else to account for teachers being told to "suck my di_k" by students, being told "f___ you", being told "I'm gonna find you after school and jump yo a__? Or being spit on, having objects thrown at them? No one in the previous generation would even have dreamt of doing these things.
For you to claim that the desired result of education is a "lack of wisdom, virtue, self restraint..." is ludicrous. These are the results of a lack of PARENTING. The onus of character training has been passed on by the heedless progenitors to the teachers, with the additional restriction that teachers are no longer allowed to discipline students lest they be put up on charges of corporal punishment, as simply raising one's voice or making students feel "nervous or afraid" now qualifies as corporal punishment. The teachers just have to stand there and take all this nonsense, and the rest of the class suffers as their learning time is decimated by the disruptive actions of the poorly-parented.
THERE is the root of your lower scores. Not the teachers.
I claimed no such thing. You misunderstood what I said. Wisdom, virtue, self restraint, etc, are the desired character traits that we want to follow from all this "education". They are exactly what we are NOT getting.
I specifically said that teachers are not the problem per.se. I will say this: Teachers that are members of AFT or NEA yet disagree with the positions of these unions are sheeple and are doing it for the money, simple as that. I don't see teachers protesting their union bosses, administrators, and whatever other PTB that apparently force them to teach sodomy, moral relativism, and secular humanism.
Nevertheless.