Parents should be doing the pushing, **not** a government with a gun.
You are right - kids need to feel useful and either infantalizing or worshiping teens does nothing to help them, only hurt.
Feel? Feel?
Kids "feel" useful when they actually ARE DOING useful things. Simply attempting to create an environment where the child merely "feels" useful is an educational fairyland and the child **knows** this. High school for this child is a Potemkin village.
For a child who needs a college education for his career goals, then algebra and the other college prep courses mean the child really is **doing** something **useful** that will further his goals. Should the government **force** the other children to behave like hamsters on an educational exercise wheel? I don't think so.
Solution: Begin the process of privatizing universal K-12 education. Let parents, teachers, and principals quietly and privately decide these matters. Get government out of the education business.
Still waiting on you to document this, just like I have been waiting for a month now.
You know what they say, if you can't prove it it must not be true.