Your right: many, including my brother, exempt his school from criticism. The fact is that multiculturalism is anathema to true education. The premise of multiculturalism is that the most important things to teach about: good or bad, noble or base, virtuous or vicious depends on your “culture”; that everybody gets to choose for himself. Education on the other hand, since the time of Socrates and Plato, has been essentially about the search for those things that are good or bad always and everywhere.
I could go on, but the bottom line is that it is philosophically impossible to receive an education in a system that accepts multiculturalism as a premise as does public education everywhere.
It is not “just” multiculti. Academics is not stressed much anymore. Ever look at a school history book? I wouldn’t be surprised at kids that don’t know what geography even is. Compare the math books at any level with Saxon Math which many Christian and private schools use. Public school math wastes lots of teaching time with New Math and feelings about math. Spelling? how quaint. Reading ? well you don’t get very far with that when grammar is not taught any more and the kids can’t spell. The day is filled up with sex ed now and environmentalism and gay is good for you and self-esteem. There just isn’t time to teach numbers and no need to with calculators being so cheap. And how about the classrooms where the smart kids don’t get new work because they are tasked with helping the dummies catch up.