When Norway wanted to radically increase the performance of their students, they took two important steps. They required all teachers to have a masters degree and radically limited the number of schools offering that degree program. In that way, they made it very competitive (and high status) to become a teacher. They also significantly increased teacher salaries. Those measures led Norway to become a world leader in high school education. That would not solve all of our educational challenges in the US because of our vast wealth distribution disparity and the impact of poverty on student performance, but it sure would help if we raised the bar and prestige for teaching as well as the salaries.