You are so right. It's always "MY kids school isn't like that." Sure it isn't. All you have to do is read their textbooks and listen to their teachers to know differently.
When I see schools teach reading successfully at a rate equal to what we had before 1850 and compulsory public schools, I'll think they can teach other things. Parents just don't get this.
In 1850 most kids did not go to high school. Or in 1900 for that matter. My maternal grandfather graduated 8th grade, although my maternal grandfather graduated from high school. I wouldn't be surprised to find that neither of my paternal grandparents graduated from high school, but I don't know one way or the other. I'm the first in my family, either side, to get a college degree, and I think my 6 year younger brother is the second. We may still be the only ones from our generation to do so. My wife's grandfather had a 4 year college degree, around 1919. That made him a very unusual farmer, for those days.
I think my point is that in the past, schooling through 8th grade was thought sufficient to prepare one for citizenship. It probably still would be if we taught the stuff they did then. Of course in those days the kids came from two parent households, and lived with both of their natural parents. In some communities over half of the kids are what were termed "bastards" in those far away times. Even on the "right side of the tracks", many, maybe most, kids come from single parent households, or blended families, his, hers and theirs sort of thing. A lot harder raw material for the schools, public, or private, to work with.