The school system is currently bad, I don't know the schooling system in the US very well but I guess it won't be that much better than here in Europe anyway.
But I think here goes the old saying: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance
I mean, if you have to deal with 20 kids every day, all day long it probably won't take you all that long to fall back to a more authoritarian system either ;P
Interestingly enough private elite schools are even worse in pretty much all aspects you mentioned. The very schools "the ruling class" sends their children too. Almost like they believe it's simply the best system to run a school and educate children.
On a side note when I was in public school we did learn about different systems like anarchy and all that kind of stuff actually
Thanks for the input. I'm curious, what sort of explanation was given regarding anarchy? I've never heard of it being mentioned, at least not in a positive light, in any public school system.
I don't remember the details as it's quite a while ago ;)
But I believe it was quite fair - I suppose it depends a fair bit on the teacher tho and I got quite lucky in that regard.
Also that was in Germany if that helps...