We're having conversations about putting everyone's kids through private school in my family now. This version of public education is starting to look like a failed experiment in many ways. The amount of money that goes into this system has become unbelievable relative to its outputs. Everything is about money now. Massive contracts. Multiple layers of entrenched bureaucracy. It's probably not going to fix itself at this point. Too many self-serving actors are involved who work in administration buildings all day. You don't need this much middle management to run an elementary school. If you eliminated all of the bullshit admin and "support" services, you could probably quadruple the salaries of the teachers.

How about the teachers who despite the comprehensive takedown in "Sold A Story" just love the "coziness" of the failing methods and promise to continue using those proven-to-fail methods of teaching reading? Or the ones sexually assaulting students?

In your work, do you exclusively work with people at your own skill level? Is that an effective way to become more skilled?

John Taylor Gatto nailed it over 30 years ago: https://cantrip.org/gatto.html

You're confused because you think the purpose of school is to educate.