My wife's a teacher in a needy school. Given class sizes and behavioural issues, she's barely able to teach them the basics day to day. Class of 14, she's got 3 autistic kids and three with serious behaviour issues. On any given day she has 1-2 EAs for support. She's got Grade 1 kids throwing chairs. So the idea that there's plenty of room to teach stuff if only teachers would get off their butts, is pure nonsense.
Teachers these days have to make up for all kinds of failings from parents who haven't taught their kids the basics. The violence in the classroom, against other students and against teachers is unbelievable. And yet parents have literally emailed in, complaining about my wife being too strict, school not being fun enough, etc.
In this environment, which most of the public voted for (all those staffing cuts aren't random), it's kinda hard to imagine that these kids are going to be molded in to model citizens when most of our educators are worried about teaching them basic literacy and enough self-discipline to not end up in Juvi.