You're right. The Progressives set about to reform American education in the 1890's and they succeeded. Under the, perhaps honest but naive, guise of democratizing the thing, they succeeded in short order in reducing educational opportunities for the brightest and condemning the ineducable to constant failure.
The last century has been nothing but a struggle to bring those two endpoints closer together. And they have!
The American people believe in “education” too so long as there is not too much studying involved.