I think that what would improve the schools is that people who get into teaching do it for the right reasons.
Right now, the schools of “education” turn out dumb-ass bubble heads. Any self respecting type-A personality is filtered out of the education gig, because they simply can’t stand the mind-numbing coursework of abject leftist gibberish that is an education in “education”. They simply do not possess the pedantic skills to be successful as teachers, nor are they taught good pedantic techniques. They are taught leftist garbage.
If you really want to reform education, it begins in the colleges who turn out these incapable nitwits. It also begins at the local school boards who offer positions to these nincompoops. A degree in education does not make them a teacher.
Start isolating some of these schools. Refuse to hire their graduates. Let them know that you will not consider their graduates for any position. You know which colleges have good programs, and which are the party schools. If you don’t, you’re going to need to investigate schools to find out which have good programs and which don’t.
Most of the public schools now are populated with the products of an inferior education, and led by the same inferiors.
If they use the line “you don’t understand education” that is an attempt to get you to back-off and make you question yourself. Don’t fall for it. Tell them that their degrees are worthless. They are education majors, and that they may have the highest GPA’s in the college, with the lowest overall IQ. Where the Engineering and hard sciences have the lowest GPA’s and the highest overall IQ’s.
The key is to realign the filters in the colleges, make the teacher candidates pass a a minimum of Calculus I and maybe Calculus II. That will filter out the pretenders who get into teaching because the coursework is easy, it’s a cushy gig with tenure and good bennies. For those who want to teach, this ensures that they are smart enough to pass courses like those, and can learn proper pedantic skills.
Once you clean out the communist sympathizers and weenies who are incapable of teaching.
My college roommate's girlfriend (now wife shudder) was an education major. She was kind of an idiot. Then we both ended up in the same basic astronomy class together. It was so easy it even had the class number "Astronomy 123." Probably the easiest "A" I made in college. She struggled through every bit of it and barely passed. Now she teaches kids!