[HumblyTossed]

Of course it's a political problem. There are people who have been scheming how to dismantle public education. The short term goal is to funnel tax payer money to private schooling. The longer term goal is to make sure the lower classes simply don't ever get an education.

So, yeah, it is a political problem.

[philwelch]

This is a conspiracy theory made up and spread by teachers unions for their own vested interests.

[vacuity]

I can't speak on whether you're right, but there is genuinely a component where public schooling can't lump everyone together and expect things to work out. In high school, I knew someone who spread vicious rumors and made remarks about Nazi Germany and whatnot. Supposedly on the autism spectrum, although that's not an excuse either way. He was smart enough, but seemed more interested in aggravating and harassing people. There needs to be a separate schooling environment for people like that, one way or another.

[shiroiuma]

And speaking of Germany, over there they don't lump everyone together: somewhere around high school level, they split everyone into one of 3 tracks. Only one of those leads to college, the other two are for low-performers, and for people destined for the trades. Looking at the state of German industry, I'd say the system works out much better than the American system. However, a lot of leftists complain about it because it's somehow "unfair" for low-performing kids to not be grouped in with high performers where they can magically become better students by interacting with them...