A well rounded liberal arts education requires a very solid foundation to build upon. Some schools are better than others. When you include private education in the US in the picture there's a wide range of teaching methods available. But that really begins to kick into gear by middle school and then high school, not kindergarten. And with the absence of any standards you really leave the door open to taxpayer funded public schools incapable of demonstrating their students are being taught, period. Granted there needs to be a balance and there needs to be room for individual discovery, but I'd rather know my tax dollars are assuring at least a floor to what must be taught. I have no issue with exceeding that at all.
Now in the USA funding has been tied to "achievement". You get funds dependent on how many kids you can push through the standardized tests. So all the goofy stuff like art and music and sport and so forth gets shorted. And ideologs try manipulate the curriculum to reinforce their ideologies and religions.
What I am saying is that Liberal Arts in the manner of Classical Antiquity used to be the standard. The teaching of it began and it was the baseline, floor, foundation on which higher education was built. If children seemed more keen to practicing trades they would be placed to apprentice in those trades as suited. There was actual involvement by communities, villages, towns and so on.
Then, the Federal government became involved and it became as you say here, tied to achievement. Inner cities and rural areas cannot afford to pay wages of "rock star" level teachers for public funded schools. Private schools are not afforded by those who do require some form of subsidized education for children.
Ergo, the liberal arts got binned in favor of simply given children a smattering of facts without any knowledge, wisdom or capacity to use these facts to any worth while purpose. All that was cared about was getting children to obey authority, cite useless facts to pass "standard" tests.
This pattern given time creates a mindless mass that now happily allows others to think for them.
"Well the FDA says vaping is bad so it must be." (Applies here in the U.S.A)
Do I need to expound upon this one?
"I saw on the news it's the evil Muslims what do suicide bombings and our government wants to protect us from them. I know Mike next door reads the Quran. Mike then must be a suicidal bombing Muslim, I'll report him to the government."
I have seen manuals in use by the C.I.A, an agency of our government, that instruct on how to create bombs which can effectively be used in suicide strikes. I've read histories of The Inquisitions, where Christians were heard to have said "burn the whole village down because the one witch here cannot be found, God will sort his own." My point is it isn't all Muslims that do evil, nor do all those doing evil use suicide bombs.
"The preacher in my church says God hates homosexual people. He says it says in the Bible. I'm not sure how to read the Bible or where to find that, or how to think about the Bible. I'll take my preacher's word for it because he knows all about the Bible."
The one admonishment that nears being anywhere close to condemning homosexuality, is instead condemning pedophilia. There's a verse stating roughly "men shall not lay with boys". There is no real condemning of homosexuality in the Christian Bible. Yes, I've looked. My point being authorities might not know, or might knowingly lie to you. And it isn't only religious leaders that I count as authorities.
And further clarity. I am not attacking any one religion, philosophy here. I am also not being abusive of homosexual people. That would be rather hypocritical and immature of me, a bisexual man to do. I'm also not attacking straight people, white, black, red, yellow. I am though attacking the ideology what creates labels amongst us and hate. Sometimes that comes from supposed authority.
Further then, our hate as the collective society fuels this fouled up education doled out. How so? Well, why should the wealthy (Capital) desire any better than mindless "employees" to do the bidding? Why would Capital want for people to freely understand technology exists now to create your own mini-factories to create goods? Capital does not want competition from every Joe on the street able to spend $300 - $400 to set up a 3D printer that can make clock gears from plastic for example.
So give us labels, divide us and keep us in the dark. Don't let us have the capacity to think, to create, to do. Yes, I understand there are exceptional children who rise further. Someday I might pause and think of myself as one. Until then though, I look at what is and have to see it as part of the rotten core.