I am a former teacher (not that necessarily qualifies me to comment any more than others). What the public schools are purporting to do is something that they simply can never accomplish: taking the place of irresponsible parents.
The key to effective education is support from home: A decent breakfast; support for those who teach; treating education as a necessary and valuable thing; showing an interest in the child’s school work; monitoring the child’s homework and grades; meeting with teachers as needed; particiapting in school events and organizations, like PTA, etc.
Schools cannot do this. Efforts to make up for this (other than perhaps the feeding of them, which is clearly the duty of the parents) will never be as effective as what parents should do. The fact that many parents do not do this is sad, but not the responsibility of the rest of us.
“...taking the place of irresponsible parents.”
Pie in the sky thinking. The ability to turn parents around to becoming more responsible is just as attainable as getting better kids by throwing more money at the teachers - never happen. Society is/has been quickly moving away from having responsible parents (raised from being irresponsible kids), and it will likely not happen in the next 20 years, but until a total collapse occurs to start over.