Dana, Trevor is the only one here who has hit it right on the head and you are brainwashed by the propaganda if you think that any state-run schooling system is different. If you were fortunate enough to have been raised - as I was - into decent home-schooling which consisted of allowing me to satisfy my curiosity about a large variety of subjects while coaching me in the basics of language and mathematics, you would realize - when reading the textbooks prescribed by any state run educational system - that it is all a bunch of one-sided hogwash that promotes ignorance about the real facts, patriotism where there should be none and belief in a god that doesn't exist. Moreover, what little they do actually "teach" is done so in an atmosphere that promotes disinterest to learning and 5 minutes after your final exam, you have already forgotten more than half of what you memorized and if asked again a few years down the road, you will have forgotten 95-100% of it. What's even worse is that now, they are slowly phasing in "reforms" whereby they have dumbed down the basics of language and mathematics to a point where no one will feel challenged to learn - all this so that the slower students don't feel like a failure - they wouldn't feel like a failure if they were learning at their own pace and according to their own psychological capacity and the quicker-minded students could advance to astronomical levels and not get bored out of their brains!