In teaching composition, many of the texts with which I began included essays from this guy named John Taylor Gatto.  I found them pertinent, and only later came to locate his videos about the history of the school system (for instance, his point about 19th-century education being based on Prussian models).  It’s intriguing from a sort of “superstructure” point of view where we think about the purposes of social institutions like schooling. Here’s a good representative video of his, but I recommend others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeogjzJoCjo and entitled

What is an Education? Elite Curriculum John Taylor Gatto if you do a search for it.

Also look up his famous piece entitled The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher.

http://www.skola.gr8.se/dokument/JohnTaylorGatto/Six%20Lesson%20Schoolteacher.pdf