The missing piece in the American education system: communication, impulse control, teamwork, thoughtful decision making: emotional intelligence.
Particularly since the 90s and the onset of the "educational reform" movement, when state governments absolutely overruled local school systems and installed complete curricula. I was in mid-career when it hit Ohio, and the curriculum strands were committee-generated and ultra, ultra boring. With those curricula -- which were long, boringly-worded documents, came the standardized tests. As a consequence, a lot of the personal touch went out of teaching. It hit me hardest on the subject I had worked the longest to make interesting, American history. The Ohio curriculum had an even worse name than the traditional "social studies": it was now called citizenship. History, when taught by someone who really loves it, can open a child's mind and make them eager to contemplate the past. When done with a committee-generated uber-curriculum, it's like throwing a bucket of dust on the subject. You will never in your life hear an adult go into a library and say to the reference librarian, "My passion is social studies (or citizenship)! Can you recommend any good recent books in that field?" And the poor students, with everything geared toward the high stakes test -- as opposed to learning for the joy of engaging with a subject or an author. If what you learn is always going to be pegged to mastering the subskills in a master list for the spring test week, you will get out of school and, if you're like most of your classmates, you won't want to open a book again. (Or a "text", as the criteria read.)
Book? Those things that penalize you when you open them, because you know that the end result is going to be a testing situation.
As for those memorable, life-changing teachers, the ones you always remember, who may have made you sit up and think some startling thought or may have introduced you to a mind-blowing author, composer, or painter -- yes, they're still around, but they have far less latitude to shape the class and bring their individual expertise into the game.
(P.S. My apology to Elixir, as what I just wrote was supposed to build on the comment you added to the TV and credit card snippet. When I tried to submit, the message kept telling me that the quotation notes weren't properly assigned, and after a few tries I simply reduced the imported message to what you see above. But I really meant to harmonize with your insights.)
