It's not the government (mainly), it's the false fixed belief, held by almost everyone, that "education" is something that's done TO you, like getting a shot of penicillin, rather than something that YOU DO.
You can train small children, and you probably should, to read, write, and do sums.
But after grade six, and certainly after grade 8, there are doers and non-doers.
Our "system" is essentially a prison-like nationwide enterprise to manage the non-doers, hoping something good happens.
It's like a cargo cult.
My first roommate in medical school dropped out after it became clear that he lacked sufficient reading skill to get past the first two weeks. Think about that.
The people who gave him an elementary school certificate, a high school diploma, a university degree (with honors) and sent him off with a party to celebrate a new future doctor were like cargo cultists in the Solomon Islands after WW II, building control towers in the belief that the airplanes full of goods would return.
It's not about diplomas and degrees. It's about what smart and focused individuals can accomplish under the right circumstances.
There are great schools that produce well-educated men in Quonset huts in Africa, just with a teacher and a few books and writing tablets. But those schools do not aspire to educate the unable and the unwilling.
75% of high school students don't belong there. 90% of college students don't belong there.
Fix that, the rest will quickly fall into place. Don't fix it, and it does not matter who pays for school or how, the result will remain what we have now.
“My first roommate in medical school dropped out after it became clear that he lacked sufficient reading skill to get past the first two weeks. Think about that.”
So how did he do on the MCAT? How did he get in?
A very good point.
The fix is easy: make them pay for their own way, stop making the rest of us subsidize their education! Individuals will rarely spend their own money on something they think is not going to do them any good. As long as Americans continue to throw ever increasing amounts of money at education, the providers will happily charge more and come up with all sorts of clever reasons for why they need more still.
That is why we get all these zany courses and socialist rot. That's how the resulting education bureaucracy gets more at the expense of the rest of us. Going by the increasing amount the Education Beast has been feasting on it has learned well what arguments work to keep it growing bigger and fatter still ! Students who don't care are desserts for it's slop trough!