Yep. It’s on purpose. When you grab a canvas painting and want to put a new painting on it, the first thing you do us use a broad brush to paint the whole thing white, giving your new painting a fresh start.
Different times call for different paradigms. In an age where a country’s strength is in the size of its population, and there were no government handouts, we welcomed all comers with open arms. “Illegal immigration” was not a thing. And in a time when we needed an educated population to compete on the world stage, and books and education could be a challenge, we offered government financed education for the masses.
But we are in a different world now. Both needs have changed drastically. And the latter can be done easily and for free by any parent, while the public schools do it at a cost of five digits per year per student and, often, do a TERRIBLE job of teaching and a WORSE job of socializing.
Tax payer funded schooling needs to be eliminated.
Can just any parent teach calculus, physics, chemistry, or computer science? No. Can they get help? Only if they know how to seek those answers, and then explain their findings to their child.
Most parents cannot handle the heavy stuff.