Click my name...my FR homepage ; )
Anyway, I think a lot more folk are "up" on these matters than we're led to believe. The majority of them, however, don't know what to do about it and thus trust the system regardless because everyone else seems to trust the system. If you say something or, worse, try and take action, those holding the reigns (and, again, I mean the unions, the bureaucrats, and other "embedded" moles) do what they can to subdue you. This is especially evident at the local level. If you go after the state or federal levels it's reduced to a "political issue" making it easier to marginalize and, in the end, ignore.
I agree that the situation, our education system combined with its effects on society (and vice-versa), runs in cycles and that, eventually, something resembling sanity will take root again - unless, of course, the cycle of history leads us down the Roman path. It's just that I'd like to see it in my lifetime, preferably sometime before my kids graduate from elementary school.