No, I don't think he is. I've run across enough dull people who say things like "think outside the box", to understand the power of conformist indoctrination. I think you're underestimating the formative power of educational systems to teach through punitively reinforced repetition. Children are being failed for expressing creative interpretations of something that purposefully offers its audience multiple and sometimes conflicting interpretations. Most will abandon attempts at expression in formalized settings and shift their brains into parroting memorized interpretations offered by their teachers. In this case the teachers are training their students based on interpretations offered by the state.

Kids pay attetion like they eat stuff - not how you want them to neccessarily or what would be rational even.

One thing I noticed about socialization processes is they are about teaching things they are too afraid to teach directly like when and how to lie and when hypocrisy is acceptable.

If you practice some vice while expecting them to be virtuous you teach that the "good behavior" (say you serve them broccoli and water while you have fried chicken and soda) is childish and vice is to be preferred when not forced.

I think the meta teaching is more important, and more impactful that the information taught.