Even more depressing Val, is that from my experience, the lowest achieving teachers end up in elementary school! Since it's "just" kindergarten or "only" first grade, then it's preemptively easy to teach and requires little education.
I don't want average elementary teachers who are also average in the classroom. You may be average academically, but passionate, inspired and willing to admit when you don't know and go look it up. DS had one of these teachers in 1st grade and she was stellar. Some of his favorite interactions with her started with, "I'm not sure, let's Google!"
As a teacher and an administrator, I have consistently run into problems with teachers who are both average academically and as teachers but refuse to recognize that. They are the ones that cling to the desperate need to prove they are smarter than their students, tend to struggle with classroom discipline and bully their way into pop quizzes, absurd projects and long tests, just to say "Ha! I told you so!"
