You are correct; evil is too harsh a term. There are no doubt many parents who would like other educational options for their children, but are trapped by economics or other circumstances. There are probably others who, like almost everyone several decades ago, went to public school and actually got a decent education, and desperately want to believe that it is still happening with acceptable regularity. It isn't. The test scores prove it, even though the testing standards have been lowered several times to illustrate some artificial successes. Public education passed the point of diminishing returns well over thirty years ago; the more money thrown at the problem, the worse it gets. The only way to improve public education is to remove the compulsory funding, and force them to compete for the parents' education dollars on an even playing field. To advocate one additional cent of funding where this economic truth has been demonstrated to the extent it has with regard to public education, is fiscal insanity.
I didn't crawl out from under a rock, and my "stream of rhetoric" is not from ignorance. I have been acquainted with, and worked with many people in the education field. I have tried to "get involved" on a local level, and found out that the only involvement the public education industry wants is money and votes. I have read research papers and books on the subject for the past thirty years (Thomas Sowell is one excellent source, of many). In most metropolitan locales in the U.S., over half of public educators who have children, send them to private schools during their elementary years. Education majors overall have the lowest SAT scores of any group in acedemia. Etc., etc.
The lists of gloomy education facts go on and on, and public education gets worse and worse. Every twelve years a completely new crop of marks waltz into the system with their most precious trusts, and plunk them down on the NEA alter. The parents are forced, by guilt or direct coercion, to push for ever-increasing taxes to feed this monster. Their children are sent door-to-door selling trinkets and candy for the beast, just like the glassy-eyed Krishnas who once plagued our airports. Our colleges are filled with foreign students because American students are so dumbed-down now, in general, that they can't even qualify to be an Education major. A few more dollars will fix it though.
What a macabre, but unfortunately true, vision.
The majority of public schools are outfitted just as you explain. There *are* however, a few wonderful ps's dotted throughout the country that haven't given in the PC and socialist agenda...yet. ohioWfan's children attended such a school system.
Where I live it's considered 'fairie prairie' complete with alternative lifestyle education to the hilt...and of course the pc slant over everything. There's *no way* we'd send our daughter into the slime pit here.