We at the same time lament the fact that the primarily utility of most of our schools are subsidized governmental childcare and also praise the progress of society having liberated the women to be free to pursue the same endeavors as the men.
Perhaps future societies will go back to the drawing board and recognize communal, multi-generational living, where one was tightly integrated with some form of community provides everyone the greatest benefit and happiness, not being dual income wage slaves who leave mostly strangers and the state to raise their children.
America’s not special. Schools are very similarly run in every government school system I know of and almost all the others. https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=11375
> How did our communities let it get so bad...
If schools provide childcare and sort and rank the children a large majority of parents are satisfied.