“It’s a difficult situation to overcome, and I don’t see an easy solution short of scrapping America’s BS education system and starting from scratch.”
BINGO! I was in high school when the WWII generation was just starting to retire and were being replaced by the ‘60’s hippies. The difference was amazing. Then, my final year, they started bussing and integration. The schools went from having their highest priority on education to a platform for preparing society for socialism and using it for social reforms.
Between my junior and senior years the system changed so radically I went from learning to simply trying to survive until the end of the day. I doubt I learned anything about academics that final year, not a thing. I did learn all about the reality of race relations and that Che was, like, some awesome radical dude.
I have had several retired grade school and high school teachers tell me that 1972 (amazing, that they all mentioned that particular year) was “the last really good class”.