Not just the public schools, after much of the youth of the ‘60s went nuts when the public schools were comparatively sane. It is easy to dismiss what’s in the classroom.
What’s not so easy to dismiss is garbage television, garbage web sites, garbage “music”. It is the march through the institutions.
They won't get that in public schools, so it's up to the parents.
True, but the cowardice of authority in the 60’s was a very big contributor. I taught school in Fairfax County Va in 1968-69 before entering the armed service. At the high school I taught at there were definite ‘student power’ actions but the administration didn’t budge and by the second semester the activities had dissolved. While on leave at the end of 1970 I visited this school. Same building , different school. The people at Dept of Ed HQ had decreed ‘liberalization’ of rules. The tight dress code was eliminated so the students were an unwashed or half dressed mob, girls with mini skirts and crop tops, males with dirty cloths and hair to the shoulders a ‘student smoking area’ created which meant class skippers had a permanent congregation area, internal controls were gone so in the middle of a class time the halls were swarming with drifting students. Because ‘elective’ courses were now in place students often had ‘free periods’ in their schedule so it was impossible to know who was or was not really on ‘break time’. The Vice Principle who I had gotten to know pretty well said he was retiring in June and the whole secondary system was now a zoo. This happened in many institutions, authority figures just behaved irresolutely or just plain gutlessly. The President of SF State U in California was the only university president that essential treated student mobs as illegal strikers and brought in the state police who stayed on campus for months. He was execrated but did not care. He was unique. So we have had a half century of consequenceless disorder and the Gen XYZ or whatever the hell it is is now dominated by crazed fools. I only hope I live long enough to see this rotten culture collide with something really big and unpleasant. But those to blame are the so called authority figures circa 1970 who were just cowards and gutless.