Yes, having been born in 1936, I grew up in a different America too. If you got it busted at school you'd pray to God that Mom and Dad didn't find out because you'd get it busted again for embarrassing the family.
You were taught by people of my father's generationm born in 1913. He grew up in a household with his grandparents. His grandfather served in the Civil War.
Well...Socialist-entitlement Obamacare won't be that bad at first because of the values of the people trained in the old system. It will take a generation or two for the true horror of Obamacare to manifest itself. Then, ...the **same** arguments uses to reform socialist-entitlement government schooling will be trotted out for socialist medicine.
Fundamentally,...government schooling is SOCIALIST-entitlement and single-payer education! If it seemed to function fairly well in your generation it is because your teachers ( of my father's generation) were still close enough to the values of those pioneers who broke the land and arrived penniless to our shores in a time when there was no welfare.
( I am late. Not proof read.)