Public schooling is dominated by politics.

It did not feel like daycare or an indoctrination system. My fellow students did not look like organic robots - they were being taught to think critically by teachers who were passionate about their subjects. Most of the history teachers, for example, went out of their way to explain that there are different ways of looking at a historical event and that one should critically examine all primary sources (keeping in mind that the sources might be wrong or deliberately lying) before making a judgment.

[And back to the subject: I don't think my former high school could have easily switched to Linux. The teaching was pretty good, but computer competence was problematic.]