American teachers (along with their students) are, in short, the tragic victims of inadequate theories. They are being blamed for the intellectual inadequacies behind the system in which they find themselves. The real problem is not teacher quality but idea quality. The difficulty lies not with the inherent abilities of teachers but with the theories that have watered down their training and created an intellectually chaotic school environment. The complaint that teachers do not know their subject matter would change almost overnight with a more specific curriculum with less evasion about what the subject matter of that curriculum ought to be. Then teachers could prepare themselves more effectively, and teacher training could ensure that teacher candidates have mastered the content they will be responsible for teaching.

Those who hope to find amelioration of the “teacher-quality problem” through the use of computers and “blended learning,” in which children learn in part via digital and online means, may be fostering yet another delusion about teachers’ and students’ skills. Computers seem to work best in helping older students learn specific routines. No doubt well-thought-out computer programs can help teachers do their work, especially for teachers in their first years. But there are inherent limitations to computer-assisted teaching.

Given these limitations, it’s unlikely that technology can transform primary education. Young students rely on an empathetic personal connection that not even the most advanced computer-adaptive programs can deliver. This is not to say that computers have no important place; it is to say that their place is supplemental, not transformative. They can support teachers under a coherent, cumulative curriculum. Computers cannot magically replace the hard thinking and political courage needed to create one.

That teachers cannot be replaced by computers doesn’t mean that individual teachers should not be replaced. The problems with teacher evaluations concern the unreliability of the value-added measures of teacher performance in language arts, but do not apply to estimates of poor teaching based on clear evidence. There is no reason that teachers should enjoy special job protections at the expense of children. Tenure protections at universities were instituted to avoid censorship of opinion. But even in universities there is no tenure protection for “failure to meet a specified norm of performance or productivity,” nor should there be for schoolteachers.

Elementary-school teachers are people who—for the most part—love children, who want to devote their lives to children’s education, but often find themselves stymied and frustrated in the classroom. They apply the notions received in their training and do what they are told to do by their administrators under the ever-present threat of reading tests that do not actually test the content that is being taught. Under these extremely unfavorable conditions of work, it’s no wonder that teachers unions have focused on bread-and-butter concessions—and have pushed back against punitive but unproductive reforms. When the classroom, which should be a daily reward, becomes a purgatory, one turns to contract stipulations.