Teachers shirking responsibilities while demanding more pay?

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Now, before I go off on my rant, please understand that I highly appreciate good teachers. Often they're hard to come by, the ones who really are just interested in educating young minds. With that said ... Have any other parents noticed the increasing trend of teachers doing less while demanding more? I have five kids in school. My youngest is in grade 1, and my oldest is in grade 7, so I have some experience with different levels and teachers. Up until this year, they all attended Catholic school, though I'm not catholic ... I simply preferred the atmosphere of smaller class sizes. This year, they've all transferred over to public. My complaints are consistent with both systems. Each year, more and more is sent home to be done either alone, or with parents. My 10 year old son is to spend one hour reading with his parents per night. My 9 year old daughter is to spend 45 minutes writing with parental supervision each night. My 12 year old has a science project to do at home that his parents are supposed to monitor and mark independantly before sending it in for final marking. My 11 year old daughter and her parents are supposed to do a sociology study out of the home together. My grade 1 son is supposed to spend an hour a night on his writing, with his parents. While a parent with one child might handle this work load fairly easily, to a parent with 5 children, this is nuts. I can't possibly do each of these things with each child. Not to mention the time constraints. My kids get home from school at 4. The bedtime routine starts around 8, when they start winding down, go for their showers, brush their teeth, etc. That means they have 4 hours to do their homework, eat supper, do their chores and SOMEWHERE in there, actually have fun and be kids for awhile. I could simply be frustrated with that, but then it occurred to me that my frustrations extend way beyond that. My frustrations stem from the fact that I'm now doing the teachers job, while they demand pay raises. Why?!? Don't get me wrong, I have no problem teaching my kids. I enjoy spending time with them, I love talking to them, and hour long discussions about politics, religion and life in general are NOT rare around my house. But I'm confused. Why are the teachers continually sending home projects to be done WITH the parents (knowing the average home consists of 2 parent working families) then assuming they are deserving of pay raises, while doing less work? The reality is that pay should depend on their successes and failures, and with this type of shifting of responsibility, they are deserving of much less. Have you noticed this trend with your school system? Have any rants about your childs school system in general?