> American public schools are quite adept at teaching distrust in authority, particularly in bureaucrats.

I wonder to what extent that property is primarily due to them being schools, or primarily due to them being public, or primarily due to them being American, or is it some combination of the three?

My own impression (having experienced both as a child) is that private schools are less prone to bureaucratic inflexibility than public ones, which is one of the reasons why my wife & I have chosen private schooling for our children. But, not the US, so our experiences may not be directly comparable.