Some years ago, McKinsey conducted a study which found that a majority of public school teachers in the US come from the bottom of the distribution of academic performance in college:
While there are public school teachers that come from the top of the academic distribution, they constitute a minority of all public school teachers in the country.
The same study, BTW, found that countries with better public school systems hire teachers that come from the top of the distribution of academic performance.
What else would you expect? Teaching is a crap job with crap wages. Why would higher performing academics choose to work in this field?
I have heard people on HN complain about sub $100k salaries being poverty wages, but apparently they think teachers should work for peanuts and be happy about it.
> Who paid them to do that research, and what was their agenda?
It's on the second page, right after the cover page. The work was part of McKinsey's non-profit pro-bono work. Quoting: "The preparation of this report was co-funded by McKinsey and Proof Points, a non-profit organization designed to support state-level education reform. This work is part of the fulfillment of McKinsey’s social sector mission to help leaders and leading institutions to understand and address important and complex societal challenges."
https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/public%...
...which is consistent with your experience.
While there are public school teachers that come from the top of the academic distribution, they constitute a minority of all public school teachers in the country.
The same study, BTW, found that countries with better public school systems hire teachers that come from the top of the distribution of academic performance.