"The amazing thing is how little time is spent on curriculum at the state level, at least in NY. Yet, massive amounts of funding is channeled to private corporations for testing."
You are one of the few commentators who actually touched on the real issue. All this talk of salary, tenure, and amount of vacation is short sighted and divisive. The real problem is that teachers and students are not engaged in their day to day activities. We need an entire structural overhaul of almost every school in the country. Tests create an antagonistic relationship between students and knowledge. There are a fraction of schools that use a portfolio based curriculum with teachers that are assigned a group of students they they are responsible for. There is only one high stakes test, English, which is obviously important to have a basic benchmark. Think back to all the test you took and how little you remember about any of it. Then think of the classes that actually engaged you, they were most likely project based where the teacher presented something and put the real work in your hands in the form of an assignment that required creativity and responsibility, not regurgitation. Even math should be presented with concept, practice, then implementation in reality.
Tests on the whole serve to enrich a select few private companies and all the kool-aid drinking elected elites that want a future generation that is even less critical and more compliant that the one we have now. Their goal? Consume more of what is offered with less criticism.