Once upon a time, young people in America graduated from High School with the ability to read real books, perform complex calculations by hand, and discuss history, geography, and civics with good understanding. As Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell have noted, this was true in many black schools as well as white schools.
The Powers That Be decided to change that. The education establishment today is intentionally short-changing kids. I have no doubt that this is deliberate. It is a means of control.
The other thing that happened in the old days is that kids who wanted to dropped out when they wanted to.
No one was forced into the teacher-jobs programs called school. Many left to learn trades with functional literacy.