This does not shock most of us. If you go all the way back to the seminal concepts for American public schools, you will find that the founders believed the purpose of mandatory secondary education was to overcome the educational and social inadequacies of the lower classes.
Parents are important.
Communities are important. But in the long run, good schools are probably more important. That's why we are in an uproar about them. Even the people who home-school their children take their cues from the standards and curricula of good schools. It makes sense.