But the entire problem is that millions of children are being forced into a regiment of school based on the Prussian system (which also pioneered goose stepping), then segregated by age rather than ability and indoctrinated in whatever it is that politicians of the day compromise on. Students waste thousands of hours learning far less than they could, they endure harsh psychological trauma in dysfunctional settings and then enter the job market with cookie-cutter skillsets.

I don't see how promoting organizational improvements as an alternative to educational freedoms is a good solution here.

In the industrial era when the system started, there was a somewhat defensible position that a conformist generation of young people indoctrinated with the same beliefs and an inclination to defer to authority was exactly what the factories needed. That era has passed. Education is priceless, but schooling and its associated credentialism is arguably the worst market distortion of the past century.

The former New York Teacher of the Year wrote a book on this topic: https://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-An...