First off, let me say that when my dd started elementary school, I had nothing but respect for teachers. I had phenomenal teachers when growing up in my cash-poor urban school which 30-40 years ago had the type of behavioral/drug/race issues that other parts of the country have been dealing with in the last years. And yet, 30-40 years ago -- when teachers were vastly underpaid -- these dedicated men and women saw to it that I was given an opportunity for an education that exceeded in quality that found at some of the most expensive private schools in the country (as evidenced by our test scores on the APs, SATS, ACTs and so on). In addition, I had a very demoralizing home life and these teachers went out of their way to give me positive reinforcement and to help me believe that I could rise above my home life. Were ALL of my teachers wonderful? Of course not. My PE teachers were, generally, known alcoholics or bullies. My earth science teacher fell asleep while teaching class almost every day. But in general, my teachers were fantastic and the schools run well.
Now, my dd enrolls in school. What happens to my view of teachers and the ed system? Let's see:
First grade teacher doesn't understand first grade math -- she admitted this to me. (She also kept insisting that asthma really wasn't a serious illness and I was being ridiculous about my concerns for my dd's health.)
Second grade teacher screamed constantly, denigrated the kids, made half the class cry every day, calls the developmentally-disabled girl in the class "STUPID!", and is so bad the class has a constant parent volunteer in there to ensure she doesn't physically abuse a child and ALL of the grading is done by parent volunteers. She also sent a note home when my dd finished the 2nd grade math curriculum in January saying, "Congratulations. Your dd has finished the 2nd grade math curriculum. If you think I'm going to do anything more with her, think again. You are officially on your own."
We move out of this school district into another one reported to have a great school system. Third grade teacher was fantastic.
Fourth grade teacher did not understand fourth grade math.
Fourth grade health teacher told the kids to use the words Venus and Virginia instead of the correct anatomical terms because she was uncomfortable with them.
Fifth grade teacher sent me home a note that my dd's shirt showed her bellybutton when she raised her hand, but did NOT send home a note when my previously-straight A dd got two Fs on science exams. I only found this out when I inquired why she got a C in science that quarter. When I asked why a shirt got a note home but not two Fs, what was her answer? "I have my priorities and telling parents about their child getting an F is not one of them."
Sixth grade math teacher told my dd that she should stop getting As in math, because getting a B was good enough. SIxth grade history teacher's class consisted of him putting an overhead projector of transparencies on the wall and having the kids copy his notes into their notebook. When they were done with that, he would sit around and ask them to gossip about which girl was going out with which boy. Sixth grade English teacher constantly lost the kids homework assignments -- she admitted this -- but would then give the kid an "F" on the assignment even though it was her fault.
Seventh grade health teacher gave the kids grossly wrong wrong wrong information about human sexuality.
I could go on.
Based upon our experience in the least 8 years, the odds are that the majority of my dd's teachers will not be competent and/or professional and that the school system will do nothing to get rid of them. So while I do believe there are good teachers out there, the odds of my dd getting them are small.
At this point, I would say that if teachers feel they are getting bashed, half of it is unrealistic expectations/attitudes from parents and the other half is due to good parents gettting angry about the plethora of poor teachers who never seem to get fired. So the question I would have for teachers is this -- since you really can't have much impact on how bad parents behave, what is your profession doing to ensure that the other half of that equation changes -- that good teachers are rewarded and bad teachers are removed?*
(*Perhaps when I hear more about unions working to get rid of bad teachers instead of calculating to the minute how long teachers have to stay at school once the bell rings, then I'll have a better opinion.)
That's all I have to say! 
. I would imagine that everyone has had a stretch of crappy days. 
