Well I don't think it's "meant" to be cruel. I wouldn't say you could point a finger at the traditional schools for all the kids' woes.
There has been public school for awhile now, I think it's roots have always been to sort of churn out citizens who will be productive in society based on their class.
The whole assessment thing seems to have gotten out of control as far as how much time is spent "teaching to the test". And using schools as curriculum and social experiments doesn’t always have a good outcome and the people who suffer the most are the kids.
But, as far as all the organized activities and the kids being frazzled or whatever...that's not the school's fault. Kids have been going to school for many, many years, but they would have free-form play in the hours not in school. Now when they’re not in school they’re in a steady stream of school-like organized activities for sports, music, dance, art...whatever, from a very young age. Some of it is due to duel-income or single-parent household situations where the kids need to be in a supervised situation since nobody’s home to let them come home and play (though single-family households weren't uncommon in previous times, but people lived in different multi-generation family structures, or neighborhoods that were more supportive).
But it can also be the case that the parents choose to place their children in all these activities, for whatever reason, to get their children all the exposure to whatever it is they want them to be exposed to as far as becoming "well-rounded".
I’m VERY far from thrilled at the public school experiences we’ve had. Part of that is that my child is “an outlier”, not her fault, but the system is not design to handle outliers, and since the law does not force them to accommodate her I'm left to figuring out how to advocate in my own time and on my own $$. But, the private school choices have their own issues and cost alot of $$ on top of the taxes you have to pay to support the public education, and it’s a gamble to have your child change schools and see if it will or won’t work. Charters may or may not be any good, and unless you can get a spot in one that has already established a good reputation, (and charter schools might not be supported by the local bussing) competing against hundreds of others...well that option doesn't work. Magnet schools also have competing spots and you might not live in the right location to try and win the lottery. Homeschooling is really a cool idea but can be very isolating if you don’t live in place where it’s common, at least when the child is young.
I don’t care for the whole system, perhaps because it is “a system” and any organized system can get big, bad and corrupt. It's hit and miss like most of life in general. There are certainly many wonderful teachers, social workers and counselors trying to work within the constraints of “the system” to really help their students, just like there are many wonderful healthcare professionals trying to work within our nightmare healthcare insurance system to try and provide the best care for their patients.
