While probably appropriate for a shooting, "when shit's going down, call the government first" is generally not a terrible way to handle things as an adult as it tends to reliably turn N-figure problems into much more complicated N+1 or N+2 figure problems. Running your situation by a cooler head not immediately involved is almost always better and the government is always slow enough to show up that you don't lose anything if you do go that route.

Likewise, I think it is very ill-advised to cram kid's heads full of "dial 911" at the young vulnerable age where repeated messaging goes into the kind of memory that's all but impossible to overwrite.

Have they failed?

Or are they dutifully resisting cultural shift that threatens the "don't think critically, just go to work, pay your taxes, don't question the system, don't do drugs, go to college, get a job, lease a new car, buy a condo, cross your fingers that stonks go up enough for you to retire" late 20th early 21st century status quo "ideal citizen" and "ideal culture" that they were built to foster (and who are the kind of people who fill out the majority of the system)?

The way I see it peddling blue state bullshit and red state bullshit (depending on a given school district's location) is simply a common sense adaptation districts are making to garner support from local populations who were willing to support the system so long as it provided useful education at a non-insane cost but are more critical now that the deal is worse.

And the institutions reflect culture.

The fact that these institutions can exist at the low-performing state they do is a direct reflection of the culture of the people who run them, send their kids to them, pay taxes to support them, etc.

The schools can only do what they do to the degree that people aren't willing to put up with it.

>call 911, not your parents?

What else do you expect government run schools to teach if not "engage the government at any/every opportunity"?

Looking back on my own education what a disservice some of those behavior patterns (not specifically that one) they tried to teach us would be in adult life.

>When great controversy surrounds the curriculum, the safest way to keep the gravy train rolling to teach is nothing at all.

I fixed your verbiage to be more descriptive. They are teaching nothing specifically because they don't want to kill the golden goose. If there wasn't so much money at stake we wouldn't be having this discussion.