There is much truth in what you say, however, in my view public (read gov't) education is essentially dead. Reasons?
Teachers unions exchange votes to support those politicians who will maintain the status quo of ever smaller classrooms (as if that really mattered in a zoo enviornment), more money for the teachers, tenure, and little if any competency examination.
Mathematics, chemistry, physics, and the rest of the hard sciences are all but finished as far as public school children moving up are concerned. African studies, "social science" (to funny) and the rest of these essentially worthless non-objective endeavors are the norm....pathetic experiments discarding tried and true curriculaum is rampant: such as phonetic spelling, new math and etc.
My wife and I drove jalopies, gave up exotic vacations, and got all of our four out of the public schools and ultimately through University into meaningful scientific work.
My advice to young parents is to do the same....You can'r beat these self serving b@astards in the education factories of America so take other measures to save your children.....its what parenting is all about.
My wife teaches high school algebra and (based on your post), I think you might understand the frustration she comes home with at the end each day of attempted teaching! The "dumbing down" problem rules!! The idiots running the math program are touchy-feely-clueless social scientists - someone mandated that ALL 9th graders in Texas would take algebra - after a couple of years of this, "they" have discovered the obvious (something their predecessors knew) - not all 9th graders are capable of algebra.
My wife, for example, was told to teach algebra to a kid who did not pass one math class, 5th through 8th grades (he was "placed" because he couldn't be promoted on merit). This kid cost her at least 20 minutes of instructional time each day because of disruptive behavior - don't want to get into the abject stupidity of the "self esteem" crap "they" are using to foist this kid on my wife and the classroom full of students (70% of which would actually like to learn if the teacher were free to teach) - etc., etc., etc.! ....but I digress.
Having learned that not all 9th graders can handle algebra, instead of remediating said non-performers, "they" are still going to teach everyone algebra in 9th grade, "they" are merely going to take the existing course and make it into a two school-year class. The good students, and the "talented and gifted" students who are part of the "good" student population are getting totally hosed, here! This is the quintiscential (sp?) example of dumbing down! Talk about making a subject boring!! Not only that, the "bad" students (the ones who were never held accountable for their lack of performance in school) will continue to fail!! AARRGGHH!!
The only thing that works is student accountability; the homeschoolers generally have this (my oldest daughter, a certified teacher, stays home and homeschools her three boys). Kids in public schools have this beat out of them by folks like the NEA and its social engineering......
OK, so on to private schools and vouchers, right? -GRIN-