Education has always been mostly about culture and family (and individual interest/motivation) as opposed to any specific role of public education if all of those things are lacking.

IMO, the standardized testing bugbear is at least partly a red herring. An excessive focus on teaching to the test is bad; I'm sure we can all agree. But it's worth remembering that the increased focus on standardized testing grew out of a system where accountability and metrics of any sort were pretty much a four-letter word.