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> If you're lucky, a couple of your high-school teachers got doctorates from smaller universities

???

You're joking right? I went to school in rural MN. Teachers have a BA degree from a state college and thats it. The only people with a doctorate at a high school would be a Principal or admin of some sort. Rarely, a teacher might have an MA in education.

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Your cheesy neighbor to the east requires (required?) X number of graduate level credits per Y years to renew a state teaching license, along with "most" districts having a tuition reimbursement benefit AND dramatically increased pay per educational level in the union contract. Its possible for a 22 yr old teacher to only have a BA-Ed but its almost impossible for a teacher with more than 5 yrs experience not to have a masters or higher. Usually in a completely useless unrelated topic making it unusual and noteworthy that my high school calc teacher actually got his education doctorate by doing some relatively hard core research into quantitative comparative results of different techniques of teaching kids some small aspect of calc, which he was in fact really good at. Usually completely unrelated in that I had an english lit teacher who had a masters in history and her thesis was some really obscure corner. It turns out that demanding credentials and therefore handing them out like toilet paper doesn't magically make anyone smarter or more effective, but a lot of money is made in the process, so it'll continue and expand until it can't anymore.

I went to a CA public school (one of the most competitive ones), and my math teacher had a PhD from Stanford.

What did they teach?

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