“the origins of the American school system as a means to create obedient factory workers”
This isn’t really news. I recall reading this when I was in high school in the mid 1970’s.
I guess the problem is that there are very few mundane factory jobs left. They are either higher tech now—due to the computerization of the workplace. Or they are floor sweeping drones who need very little training. The “in between” jobs have been shipped to China, Vietnam, or India.
Yeah, definitely not new. I was also in high school in the 70’s. The school prepared students to work at the local oil refinery. Of my graduating class of 486 (that’s after 200 or so dropouts) there were only 32 students that went on to college. I was one. About 15 of us graduated college. There were plenty of reasons for that, but one was a guidance counselor that talked kids out of going to college. She did that with me despite very good grades and astronomically high SATs. She also did that to my best friend who scored 1600 on his SATs. He started taking SATs twice per when he was in 7th grade. (Good strategy). Schools in 70’s did not care about academic achievement.