Dan, I sympathize with your plight. Both of my siblings are in the American education field (elementary school level), and both have been teachers (one still is, the other has migrated to the administrative end of things and is a principal). Whenever the family gets together, I hear an endless stream of complaints about the ways in which the field has changed for the worse, thanks to local, state and national government bureaucracy.

Recently my brother who's been a teacher for close to 30 years told me that he would not recommend to anyone that they enter the field now. This really surprised and impressed me since I've never before known him to be without any enthusiasm for teaching.

It's a very sad state of affairs. So much for "no child left behind" -- the government leaves every child behind when it leaves teachers behind.