I don't think "pay teachers more" is sufficient. It's one part of the solution, but the other part is "be at least a little bit hesitant to fire junior teachers". When I was in high school, pretty much all of my teachers under 40 were constantly on the verge of not having a job (due to constant budgetary inadequacies); they'd be repeatedly pink-slipped only to barely manage to keep their jobs another year. Naturally, the more "experienced" teachers with more tenure were less fearful of this.
Never mind that the younger teachers were almost always leaps and bounds more engaging, while the older teachers were far less engaging. Everyone liked the younger teachers more than the older teachers - everyone except the teachers' union, that is (this is, naturally, why I came out of high school believing labor unions to be outright detrimental to worker welfare, and why I still tend to be skeptical of them).
Naturally, in an environment where you're doing everything you can to not get laid off, you're going to end up being a lot more risk-averse (lest that layoff spontaneously turns into outright at-fault termination).
As a teacher's son, you've made a bunch of fairly ageist generalizations that are not true. There are plenty of shitty old and young teachers, and plenty of amazing old and young teachers.
My only reference point is my own middle and high school experience (plus perhaps those of my classmates). From that reference point, on average, the younger teachers did a better job of actually engaging me and my classmates while simultaneously getting shafted by the school district. There were of course outliers (one or two older teachers were fantastic, and I recall at least one younger teacher who was sub-par), but "plenty" wouldn't be the quantization I'd use in either case.
It's a bit rich to accuse me of ageism when the exact problem I'm pointing out - of younger teachers getting the short end of the stick despite their skill - is literally ageism manifest.
Never mind that the younger teachers were almost always leaps and bounds more engaging, while the older teachers were far less engaging. Everyone liked the younger teachers more than the older teachers - everyone except the teachers' union, that is (this is, naturally, why I came out of high school believing labor unions to be outright detrimental to worker welfare, and why I still tend to be skeptical of them).
Naturally, in an environment where you're doing everything you can to not get laid off, you're going to end up being a lot more risk-averse (lest that layoff spontaneously turns into outright at-fault termination).