My opinion is best summed up by the adage "You need to have had an education to understand the value of education".
I think kids are naturally curious but that they have their curiosity ironed out of them by their experience at an early age.
There are huge super-schools in the UK that have been formed out of smaller schools in poor areas, where the kids of families that noone cares about are dumped.
They don't have a chance. I know, I've seen it with my own eyes.
The kids have their hopes and aspirations completely squashed by the age of 10. Those teachers who care battle through a living hell of indiscipline and apathy, while those pupils with a little ambition learn very quickly to hide it, redirect it into more culturally acceptable goals (in the context of the culture of the school, so we're talking football, or if you can't do that, petty crime, status, drink, drugs and sex), and if you insist on having academic aspirations you risk getting bullied.
Bullying in these schools is something else. It doesn't even stop when the kids are in class. As the teachers break up one fight, another erupts on the other side of the classroom. Menwhile the girls do each others make up, chat on their mobile phones and yell at other girls they know out the window.
If my daughter were to end up at that school, I would hold myself personally responsible for effectiveley putting her in an abusive situation and would hold myself guilty of abuse.
Yet is is a reality for so many kids in britain.
My guess is that the USA isn't much better.
How this translates to "them" having a part to play isn't something I would like to make any concrete assertions about, though I could speculate that the amalgamation of schools into massive education complexes where kids become anonymous and disenfranchised from an early age is a bad policy, the consequences of which the policy makers must be aware of.
It's not a viewpoint that I express with any confidence, but I wonder if the questions it poses could inspire someone with greater knowledge than I to contribute.
Is it arguably a policy of "them" that they deliberateley advocate a process of brainwashing, through advertising and much of the lifestyle and philosophy messages that are contained therein, backed up by a process of discouraging critical thought and increasing apathy for the lower classes.
Are we witnessing the subtle and subliminal creation of a version of Aldous Huxleys Utopia, as described in "brave new world".