To your second point, that's just a testament of the failure of schooling. If anything, the only things kids learn are those that they still know after summer

To your second point, that's just a testament of the failure of schooling. If anything, the only things kids learn are those that they still know after summer break, or better yet, a couple of years afterwards. The current model is based on memorizing a whole lot of stuff and then later forgetting it. very little is learned at schools and high-schools. The relationship between invested time and knowledge returned is appalling, but it makes sense once you accept that, like others in the thread have said, school and high school are essentially grown-up childcare.