I am quite fond of the purpose of education as described by John Alexander Smith, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford in 1914: “Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in after life save only this if you work hard and diligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education.”
By that standard, American education is a dismal failure.
I couldn’t agree more. I would say the public schools are now engaged in the task of teaching children to prefer rot.