Less Fortunate Schools ... or Teachers??!

Last night; I was having a very interesting conversation with my sister who happens to be an English teacher taking a long unpaid leave from schools and students. She was sitting there involved in some craft work for her daughter, because the art teacher decided that this is a suitable thing to torture the girls with, and it started like this:

Me: what are you doing?
My sister: I have to finish this for Majd (her daughter) because she needs to get a grade on it tomorrow
Me: do they still do these things in schools? my god, this is such a waste of time and talent, besides, she is not even doing it herself; which means that the teacher is not achieving the objective of the whole thing.
My sister: what to do? she(teacher) is sitting home now watching TV and I am stuck with this till 2:00 A.M.
Me: please forgive me; but I really need to laugh at this, it is so silly.
My sister: well; that's as far as the teacher knows
Me: she should evolve a bit and improve herself with something that is really compatible with life now. Kids in art classes are working on painting and maybe some graphic design, and she still teaches them to do some middle age craft work
My sister: well, it is not purely her fault
Me: what do you mean?
My sister: well, the ministry should pay more attention to what they are doing to the teachers
Me: what do you mean? from what I read; they are trying to improve things in schools and modernize methods and techniques; what more can they do?
My sister: It does not happen overnight. For example; when you force the teacher to include essays in their teaching plans; doesn't that need some time to be implemented? Teachers do not know how to teach students how to prepare essays and how to extract information from books.
Me: Come on; those teachers were students one day and they were required to prepare essays and papers, so they must know how to do that, all they need to do is pass the knowledge to students, how difficult is that?
My sister: are you kidding? when a teacher has 50 students in the class and has to control them and teach them at the same time; this is like a mission impossible.
Me: Isn't that a part of the job?
My sister: well, yes; but when a teacher has 27 classes to teach per week; where does he have the time to teach students how to do essays properly?
Me: how many hours aday does 27 classes translate to?
My sister: 6 working hours per day
Me: thats less than any other employee; government or not
My sister: but the normal employee does not have to deal with 50 youngsters driving him crazy
Me: every job has its downside, I guess.
My sister: what I think is that when the ministry wants to implement new technologies at schools; they should give some time for the teachers to cope and be confident to pass the knowledge to students. So take the essays for example; this was a cash cow for internet caffe's because students go to them and buy the paper for a couple of JD's, so no one is getting any benefit.
Me: You can't blame this on the ministry; they are doing their best, but they can't change each and every person, they have to want to change.
My sister: why are you defending the ministry? you were never a teacher so you would never know what I am talking about.
My sister's husband: well, she was a student and she thinks that all students are like her. Not everyone is a straight "A" student you know.

I smiled and ended the conversation

But, this got me thinking about what we call "Less Fortunate Schools", and had to wonder; is it really the schools or the teachers?
Each school has the same elements as any other school; they have classes, boards, equipment ... etc. It is true that some has less than others but that is not really the issue. What makes the difference is the teacher.
Teachers say that they are paid less and work more, but how do they measure and compare? Is it less fortunate schools? or less fortunate teachers?