Sure, I'll go with that. So we've got some percentage of 3% who see the school system as a failure. That's a tiny percentage. This is why data is important. I'll even agree that the real percentage of parents or graduates who think the school system is a failure is much higher. But how much higher?

> You’re really digging in here, and seem to be taking personally

Not at all. I'm interested in learning and I don't trust anecdote. I trust data. So I was hoping you have data but it seems like you won't ever have data because you're convinced that anecdote is enough. For some of us, it's not enough. We like data because we've seen anecdote paint a false reality far too many times.

> something which seems plainly obvious to many successful people: school failed to prepare them for their professional lives,

I'll make the opposite claim: it's not obvious to most successful people. It's also not obvious to the companies hiring people. Yes new employees need some training. But they do not need years of retraining to compensate for an "abject failure" of a school system that trained them for twelve years. Most employees start adding value pretty quickly. I've run my own companies. I was happy with how quickly employees started adding value.

So this is another example of why anecdote fails to help us understand a situation. My anecdote is different from your anecdote is different from someone else's anecdote.

> in many cases school was a physiologically damaging, stifling experience.

School or being around other kids? Kids are brutal. Work is also too often a physiologically damaging, stifling experience. But usually not as brutal as children can be to each other. What might prepare you for success in that kind of work environment?

> This isn’t an argument based upon data, it’s an argument based upon a constellation of anecdotal data.

Perhaps there is a constellation out there, but I don't see it and you're not willing to show it other than saying "trust me, it's obvious a lot of people feel this way".

What 's obvious to me is that Americans have one of highest standards of living in the world and the largest and most important economy in the world, along with a very high median wage. So what's hard to believe is that this has been the case for so long when 90% of the children who will go on to contribute to that economy as adults were educated in a system that is an "abject failure" when it comes to preparing them for their professional lives. That the twelve years of public education they went through needs to be thrown out, and companies have to start from the beginning in teaching all of the basic skills the schools failed to teach them.

I would also extend this to all developed countries. They all offer a high standard of living, even to lower middle class people. Most often healthcare is considered a human right. How does all this progress manage to happen when the first twelve years of education are an "abject failure"?

With all of that said, I don't want to silence or dismiss you or anyone who had a horrible time at school. For sure I had some less than ideal experiences myself. There is a lot that can be improved. But if we are going to improve, it has to start with moving from anecdote to data. We need to understand causation and what can be fixed and what is outside the responsibility of the school system and should be the responsibility of parents and society at large.

We are not going to get there thanks to articles that promise video games are a silver bullet. If many developers truly do see education as an "abject failure", then they are going to have to do what I have done: teach, write educational software, and in short get deeply involved in the industry you are trying to improve. By which point you will have a far more nuanced understanding of what does and does not work and you'll firmly be out of "it's all an abject failure" territory.

Source please? I have been working in Brazil for the past few years and the education level here is nowhere near 1970s Europe. Not even close. The public primary school system is so bad that any family who can afford it - even poor people - pay for private school. Sometimes only a $100 a month for the cheapest private schools. They are not very good, but they are better than the public schools and so there are an estimated 40,000 private schools in Brazil. About 40% of the primary and secondary schools. So about 60% of Brazilians get a very substandard primary and secondary school education.

At least 26% of the population earns below $56 USD a month and as a result the government gives them $13 a month but only if their children are vaccinated and stay in school. That should give you an idea of the level of poverty and the tax base upon which the public schools in those areas have to operate on.

Conversely, the free government run universities are excellent and hard to get into. Ironically, the vast majority of students accepted are from elite and expensive private primary and secondary schools. So the free public universities are mostly a service for wealthy or at least upper middle class kids.

Your claim that almost all of Latin America is more highly educated now than 1970s Europe is highly suspect unless you can provide something to back that up.