Your point eludes the fact we're all caught in this system, not just teenagers. Parents have few choices, they have certain budget for a house and that dictates which district they're in. Meanwhile, they're struggling and working hard and education is a pivotal means of upward mobility, so they feel it's extremely important to their child's future.

US Teachers are grossly underpaid and have to deal with tremendous amounts of training already...and stress. Consider in many of our schools, you have one teacher to 20 or 25 students, many of whom have undiagnosed learning disabilities, developmental problems, social issues, familial problems, hunger, mental health issues...teachers are already working insanely hard for low pay. I worked exclusively in struggling schools and I had kids with cousins shot dead, kids who literally jumped onto the table and screamed how myself and other teachers were racists, it's insane what teachers have to handle.

So no, We can't lay everything at the feet of current parents and teachers, there's a lot of policy, politics, and history in the educational field that no current teacher or parent had anything to do with. They're struggling and vying for success just as they see the children suffering.