Most of my teachers have had Master's degrees in their field;
A bubble gum masters degree does not make one a "highly trained professional".
In high school, my dance teacher had performed on Broadway; my music teacher was known in the local Jazz scene;
This correlates to being a good dancer, not a good teacher. Your teacher may have been a highly trained professional
In the schools I went to, teaching PE required a Physical Health degree of some kind
A degree does not mean the recipient is a highly trained professional. A third of American adults have them. So what? Teaches overwhelmingly come from the bottom half of their classes and attended second rate schools. If the degree was in Education, it was a joke. You get one for showing up, paying tuition, and playing nice with the other boneheads.
(again, or the equivalent: my high school PE teacher played professional sports),
Again, running a 4.5 40 does not imply that the runner is a highly trained professional teacher.
several of my high school teachers had their MA/MS certificate in their classroom;
I have no doubt that some of them were outstanding. Maybe even highly trained professionals. But it is absurd to say that because some teachers are outstanding, that teachers as a class are highly trained professionals.
I remember at least a couple UC Berkeley grads, so the rest couldn't have been too bad.
In fact, the rest could have been, and many probably were bad. Some Berkeley grads become teachers. Far more Arkansas Baptist and University of Pheonix grads become teachers. That means that on average, teachers as a class, are not highly trained professionals, notwithstanding the fact that some of them are.
Several with better GPAs than me (and my 3.5, at a State school).
Schools of education are like Special Olympics. Every dummy gets a 3.5 and a ribbon.
And if you think a professional certification that you can fail and take again is a joke, you might want to check the Actuarial Exams:
I didn't say anything like that. A high failure rate is often a sign of rigor. Teachers credential exams don't have a high failure rate. Monkeys routinely pass. The fact that some people fail such an easy exam tells you what a joke university programs in education are.
Failing on your first try is a rite of passage for many; and the average (mean, since you care) person who passes has failed once already.
Because in California, you need a BA from a real school,
No you don't. As I described in another comment, my undergraduate degree is from a correspondence school that awards science degrees to people who have never left their prison cells and never set foot in a lab or seen a biological specimen or experimental apparatus. I know because I have one. The college doesn't even offer classes. Yet I have been licensed in California. And a huge number of University of Pheonix graduates are teaching in California.
and then need to jump through a list of hoops to get started;
Hoops like proving you haven't been convicted of raping babies and paying a fee?
And "Real school" means 2-3 hours of homework per hour in class,
I agree, but that's not what happens in schools of education, even at Berkely. Graduate students of education read little pamphlets once a week, then write one to one and a half pages expressing their feelings about the pamphlets. They do not do 48 hours of meaningful work per week. Most of them have full time jobs and families. They do one hour per week of homework per classroom hour even in the most rigorous classes. And this is bubble gum work. Even at Berekley. I am sure you can get the sylibi from UC classes like "Diversity in Education" and "Empathy in the Classroom". Do it. You'll see.
Most of the teachers I've known are there to do the hard work, and do their best to teach kids
Even if this is true, it does not mean they are highly trained professionals. Most massage hippies do the work and do their best. They are not highly trained professionals.
Or maybe you just got all the teachers that couldn't make it at a real teaching job.
If that's true, it proves that being a highly trained professional is not a requirement for being a teacher.