This researcher asked kids what's wrong with U.S. schools. Here are their ideas.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. On that third point: Americans have a long tradition of dissing "book learnin'".

Lots of Western movies feature a stock character of a professor or other scholar "from back east" who has book smarts -- often parodied as a knowledge of Latin or Greek, philosophy, etc. -- but doesn't know how to do all the manly cowboy things that a feller needs to do to make it in the real world. There may have been a small number of real people who fit that stereotype, but mostly it's a fantasy construct to justify skipping school.