I’d hesitate to generalize like that. I think there are schools where the most motivated students can get a good primary/secondary education, without excessive risk of injury, if they get lucky ... but that’s not a judgment about the school as a whole. I got an education at public school that produced a 1530 SAT and a National Merit Scholarship and national English awards ... but I also got an “education” that made me vow no child of mine would ever attend a public school while I live, and I don’t say that lightly.
I’ve told my older children that if they can persuade their father and me that there would be some immense academic or artistic advantage to their attending school - to which the child would commit 100% - then we will allocate the money for the very nice Southern Baptist school not far from home ... but they will not go to our county schools.
Mr. Walker’s family moved to a new house in order to be in the area for a particular high school, but by the time their oldest child reached 8th grade, the school had cut the top academic programs because of the district’s focus on attempting to raise the achievement levels of the lowest-performing students. No doubt the district would agree (if a few top administrators were spiffled) that parents of intelligent and motivated students can just do a better job themselves. (They still don’t regret the move, because it put them in walking distance of their church ;-).
This happened in the high schools in the town I live in. One day I received a phone call from a woman who I knew was a avid supporter of the local public schools. She wanted to know about the Catholic HS where I had sent my two daughters. Well, she explained that the "honors" classes had been taken out of the local high schools and she was looking for somewhere that had "honors" programs. She had two, very intelligent, daughters (one had been put ahead a year) and they needed a challenge. My eldest was the same.
Well, the Catholic HS had "honors" programs and college credit programs, etc. So, both of these girls ended up at a Catholic HS. This was a woman who volunteered weekly at the local elementary schools, and I believe continued to do so even after she took her girls out of the public schools.
I think part of this whole problem began with the removal of teaching reading with the use of phonics. Yes, refusing to teach a phonetic language using phonics has really worked out well, hasn't it?