Nowadays less and less children dream of becoming teachers for the simple reason that people want to do something "for a living", not to work all for nothing. I am afraid that qualified teachers will soon be an endangered species and even those who still exist, have no motivation to do their work properly ("no pay, no play").
We do want our children to be well-educated but does anybody want to pay for private lessons just because the country does not want to pay the teachers their due (of course, using our taxes)?!?
Again, I am speaking from the point of view of a Bulgarian (= citizen of a country where obviously nobody pays attention to the problems of the population). But the link below gives evidence that undervaluing these people is actually a global problem.
http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/do-we-undervalue-our-teachers/