My mother was a teacher and she had to deal with a lot of political crap because she taught what was important (phonics) in Kindergarten during a time when schools were banishing phonics and preferred whole language (early to mid 1990s). That was just one of the things that drove my mom to retire from teaching, the BS from the ivory tower. I gained a rebellious streak towards the K-12 education system based on my own experience and seeing what she had to put up with. Her students and parents loved her.
Elementary school was a joke. Middle school was very formative to me. I learned a ton. I was bullied a ton, which didn't help. Then I went to high school... Honors English? We read a few books that I don't even remember, and spent the rest of the time playing... I kid you not... Charades. Things only got worse when the athletic coaches would teach the Honors classes. After a couple of years of this, I became a very mouthy kid frequently talking back to teachers. (Oddly enough, I rarely got in trouble for it.) Point being, they had one view of what a kid should be doing, and the buckets into which kids should fall. They also had no desire to deal with different learning styes. I would have absolutely loved to take advanced statistics, advanced writing or computer science in high school instead of wasting time trying to help the school district boost its standardized testing scores.
One of these teachers really had it out for me (a video production teacher). She told me I would be in prison by 20 because I had no respect for her. Add to that, my counselor convinced me my GPA was shit (3.6) and would be lucky to get into a Cal State (is that a bad thing?). My parents and I had enough. I withdrew and took the rest of my courses via mail and graduated a year early and in the meantime took community college classes. And guess what? I learned to love math. That happens when the instructor actually understands what they are teaching. This caused some problems with the UC system, but we were able to convince them that community college basically replaced my senior year.
And that video teacher? I eventually ran into her again, as she was advertising some high school media program at the community college. She said "What a surprise to see you here!" She had earlier tried to convince me that ITT Tech, Devry, etc. was more my style. I looked her straight in the eyes and said "Go fck yourself, Nancy." It felt so cathartic telling her off. That Fall I started as a Freshman at UCLA.
Based on my experience, I am approving of parents choosing to do one of the following: 1) putting their kids in private school as a form a daycare. Private schools have the funds to offer tons of extracurriculars such as makerspaces for students to play around in. That's important to me. Public schools do not have the resources to do this. And then get a tutor for the important subjects. Travel. Do educational trips. Don't assume your children are learning anything in the classroom. 2) teach your kids that HS is a joke, and just get through it and don't let any of the teachers put you down. Work hard and do the best you can. If it's not working, get out. 3) Do some sort of personalized program (sometimes referred to as "continuation school" where you attend class or tutoring as needed, and the rest of the time is enrichment. Continuation school was always said to be the "troublemakers." In my opinion, it's those that refuse to accept the status quo, and perhaps do have some other issues that the comprehensive high school does not want to deal with, because God forbid these students actually act human. 4) test out, just know that some university systems will then require you to transfer instead of start as a Freshman.
University is totally different. I am proud of my public university education. I could not have asked for any more. I ended up going through to my Ph.D.
Now, as a university instructor, I try my best to not judge students and understand that their performance is but a snapshot of what they accomplished in a short period of time. Who am I to stop students from following their dreams? Who am I to make a judgment of their professional worth? I wish others would think the same way.