Maggie's Farm

A lot of kids were no longer in school by eighth grade in 1922.
Census Bureau: Table A-2. Percent of People 25 Years and Over Who Have Completed High School or College, by Race, Hispanic Origin and Sex: Selected Years 1940 to 2015 supports for that assertion.
In 1940, over half of those 25 years or older had 0-8 years of schooling.
If we look at those aged 25-34 in 1940, people born from 1906-1915, which would include those born in 1909 (8th graders in 1922), we find that roughly 42% had completed only 0-8 years of schooling.


I went to a mill-city elementary school starting in the late 50's and had plenty of teachers who would have trained in the 20's and 30's at Normal Schools.
I was in school several years before you. I didn't have that experience. Of my elementary school teachers, 3 were first or second year teachers. One of my teachers was born in 1911, so she would have been in that age cohort that taught you, but she was in her first year of teaching. The rest of the teachers were of my parents' generation.

Regarding better/worse students and changing educational goals, I recall in the early 1960s our principal advising an 16 year old 8th grade graduate that he would be best off directly entering the work world. (Even too dumb for Technical school, apparently.) Which he did, and had a decent life. By contrast, I was assigned to teach 9th grade Algebra to a group that in my childhood would have been put into General Math. In my opinion, they would have been better off with General Math than with Algebra.