Why Do Americans Love to Blame Teachers?
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/09/the-war-on-teachers/379403/
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America hates teachers.
That's not exactly the thesis of Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, but her account of 200 years of education policy provides plenty of evidence for it. "The history of education reform," she notes, "shows … recurring attacks on veteran educators." In the early 1800s, reformer Caroline Beecher argued that young women with a missionary calling should replace male teachers who were "intemperate … coarse, hard, unfeeling men, too lazy or stupid" to teach; she suggested those men should be sent into the mills instead. Two centuries later, Goldstein notes, programs like Teach for America are promoted as a kind of missionary calling, in which young fresh-faced college graduates replace lazy, stubborn, unionized teachers.
In between those two endpoints, Goldstein recounts the United States' dishonorable McCarthy-era assault on left-wing teachers—and its even more dishonorable record following Brown v. Board of Education, in which black teachers were systematically fired or pushed out of their jobs in order to prevent them from teaching white students. As Goldstein shows, the main result of Brown was not to integrate schools—which desegregated only haltingly before resegregating more recently—but to force out black educators. Education reform, as so often before, seemed to be less about aiding students than about targeting teachers.
Goldstein argues that discussions of education in the U.S. have repeatedly been framed in terms of moral panics. A moral panic, she says, occurs when "policymakers and the media focus on a single class of people … as emblems of a large, complex social problem." That single class of people is then systematically demonized, as politicians and pundits present "worst of the worst" cases as emblematic of the whole.
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after 35 years. Somewhere along the way, parents began treating teachers like babysitters instead of professional educators. Mom always loved her students, but parents (and administrators) made it a rough row to hoe at times.
ETA: I agree with your assessment. 
My dad started his career as an educator (junior high math) and he got out of it just in time, too. Moreover, I have an aunt and an uncle who were teachers; my grandfather began as a teacher and retired as an elementary school principle; and my grandmother was a school librarian. I had more than enough inside information by the time I was 18 to steer clear of a career in education.
and learn how to spell!. 
institutions and companies public ed is probably low on the list. needing reform -yes. some teachers and admins better than others - yes.
selling that notion is part of 25 years of ubiquitous republican radio used to attack public ed to privatize it and destroy more unions.
ironically, more than 170 or about 30% of limbaugh's 600 radio stations piggyback college sports for community cred and ad dollars- the colleges pee on their own mission statements to make a few bucks renting their sports logos to racist misogynist teacher bashing republican radio stations- an absurd relationship that has to end.
those 1000 radio stations and their disfunctional teaher hating flunk-out blowhards have played a big part in this. it's a shame the contemporary teacher hate that stimulated the writer probably has no idea of what the main reason for much of the current teacher hate is.
https://sites.google.com/site/universitiesforrushlimbaugh/
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With apologies to the good and decent administrators here on DU, most of the ones I have known have been unbelievably inept, vengeful, uncompromising, out-of-touch, and two-faced as hell.
I taught for nearly 40 years, including subbing. I worked in a variety of districts, rich and poor, urban, suburban and rural. I can count on one hand the administrators I respected in all that time. In twenty years at my most recent position, I have seen about 15 come and go. Like "bad" priests, they just keep shuffling them to other districts, or they take early retirements with comfortable life-long benefits.
Inservice days are a waste of taxpayers' money, IMO. Our district had 10 per year, thus extending the school year two weeks. 
One of my former principals was let go based on "seniority" during cutbacks (she managed to piss off just about everyone.) I actually kind of liked her but she didn't get along with some on the board, I guess. There were also some hot rumors that she was having an affair with the Superintendent who was actually fired. She is now supervising student teachers. LOL He went on to become a superintendent in two more districts.
