They force you into a system of obedience and productivity. Subject you to petty tyrants (teachers) and peer bullies. And by default treat every student the same regardless of different neurology and personality, until they start causing 'trouble' at least.

Outside the early fundamentals of reading, writing, logic, and math, as well as being a beneficial vehicle to learn how to socialize with peers as mostly a side effect, school is romanticized beyond its actual positive social value. Its for babysitting while parents work and turning children into obedient worker drones, or at least identifying which ones will be obedient and which ones will end up under a bridge in adulthood.

It also serves even less purpose in terms of setting children up for a career now however. Climate change, high tech surveillance fascism, and the clear aim to replace all workers (especially educated white collar ones) with AI systems render this more cynical "positive" of career trajectory as largely moot. Even if AI systems are worse than humans and the quality of services go down with their mass adoption, the price of AI systems compared to humans is so extreme that it hardly matters to the bean counters.

It would be better at this point, after they're taught the basics/fundamentals, to let the kids have their own self directed fun because long term careers hardly matter anymore. You could have mentors, collected learning resources & tools, but the kids should come to them of their own desire (and they would). The only real restrictions being that they're kept away from dopamine hijacking online content that largely damages long term focus.

School probably has the potential to be wholly beneficial, but in its current form it is a mixed bag at best.