I think most educators and teachers know that students won't get the classics. The goal is to at least make the students comfortable with the difficult language of the classics, and make them realize that analysis of these books yields deep insights.
If they instead taught students easier books in schools, student would never develop the reading skills to tackle the classics, and a much smaller percentage of adults would ever bother rereading the classics or even acknowledge their power.
Of course, the teaching has to be improved so that students never hate it.
