The "foundational social concepts" children learn in school are taught to them by full-time teachers, who are only capable of repeating various myths about society that they themselves believe. The effective method to learn foundational social concepts is to live in and contribute to society, not to sit in a sterile, age-segregated social environment and listen to quarter-truths spoken by apathetic non-experts, and then be tested on arbitrary collections of unrelated fact.
I am not arguing against the concept of education in general, but the notion that it can be taught in school is, I think, one of the most damaging problems in society. You simply cannot learn quickly and efficiently as a numbered head in a sea of competitors; good, proper learning takes time, personal attention, discipline, and does not pace itself to a standardized schedule. I offer this essay, not as the foundation of my anti-school beliefs (which are supported by dozens of studies, hundreds of essays, and thousands of personal experiences), but as the same literary aperitif that allowed me to ask myself "what if school isn't good for society?"
I disagree. Many (most) of the social concepts that children learn in school are not taught by teachers, they're taught through interactions with other students, with the teachers providing guard rails. They're completely orthogonal to the curriculum.
There are certainly plenty of myths repeated in classrooms by teachers, but I don't think the ratio is worse than the number of myths you hear in any other place. In fact, I would bet professional educators probably do a better job of not repeating myths than the general population, since they study formal pedagogical methods. Go read a public comment section on any news story -- you'll find plenty of examples of egregious myths repeated by average "productive adults".
The public comments section on any news story is inundated with people who spent a large portion of their lives in school. When they were in school, they were taught to respect authority, keep their heads down, specialize in a certain field, and accept wage labor conditions for the rest of their lives. They were also taught that proper education starts with an authority and is handed down via lectures and tests, and other kinds of knowledge are not valuable unless certified by another authority endorsed by the school system. This is true whether they went to a public school or to a private religious one- the "authority" the children are supposed to listen to just changes. Kids don't teach each other these lessons, the school system does.
The value that school provides kids, parents, and the community is multifaceted.
If anything, primary educations are very important, but not because kids learn basic arithmetic, but because they learn the foundational social concepts that will permanently shape their ideas about justice, respect, cooperation, etc.