“road to hell is paved with good intentions” effort.
Probably a little bit of both. The problem is that you have doctorate post doctorate level sociologists and anthropology majors making something fairly simple, very complicated and destined to failure. And for some reason, they are stuck on “one size fits all” mantra.
It is as if an overly educated person, who has never held a hammer, is trying to tell a carpenter how to use a hammer.
Glass is half full: my son got a very good education but as parents we are engaged and involved. We had to put him in sylvan once. He is now in college studying engineering and doing very well.
It’s not just the soft science majors. Math instruction and to a lesser extent science instruction are some of the worst offenders. People who are naturally good at math and science who go into teaching in those fields ask themselves how they could be better taught. They think back to how they learned—self discovery! Problem is what may well have worked for them most definitely doesn’t work well for those who aren’t so gifted. We need the “soul-killing” rote memorization to master the basics of both science and math. On that foundation some of us less-gifted ones may discover the the joys and beauties of the subject. But if we never really learn that 7x9=72, were never going to excell in math or science for that matter.