[JediWing]

That is a bold claim. In my experience school gave me exposure to subjects I would not have thought or been interested to explore on my own, and put structure around dedicated learning time.

I have kids. I send them to school. They are learning!

You might have a leg to stand on if your argument weren't so incredibly absolutist. I could certainly concede that American schools may be a less than optimal way to learn with some outmoded practices. There are certainly variances in educational quality.

But school rarely helps with learning? School almost always harms learning? I reject those claims as false on their face.

[tbt]

It rarely helps with learning vs. natural counterfactuals. It harms by socializing kids to not believe that their own curiosity is hopeworthy.

See John Taylor Gatto's work.

Instead of inefficient spending for large, programmed classes, you should have daycare/day supervision with lots of resources (books, internet, age-appropriate tinker equipment like electronics and tools and so on, microscopes, telescopes, a few adults on hand who are experts in whatever topic to help kids get traction / navigate), more free-rangness, less authoritarianness, more mastery learning, more apprenticeship.