And the schools they went to rarely were larger than a few hundred, and often only a few dozen pupils constituted a school. The school was a familiar place. Maybe one in 20,000 citizens serves on a school board. And the schools they oversee house well over a thousand students, and are often located far from their own hometowns. And most Americans no longer have school-age children at all.
Cynicism comes easily.
And even parents find negotiating schools harder and harder. They are made to feel more and more extraneous. By the time they get to high school their beloved child is, at best, a number in a great sea of children. Not because teachers are less caring. They work in isolation, and in increasingly prescribed circumstances.