Your post is almost Gatto-like: faculty.bard.edu/hhaggard/teaching/sci127Sp20/notes/GattoSevenLessonSchoolteacher.pdf
The first chapter/essay/screed lays it out pretty clearly, the seven things schools teach:
1. Confusion
2. Class position/hierarchy
3. Indifference
4. Emotional dependency
5. Intellectual dependency
6. Provisional self-esteem
7. Constant surveillance
Gatto isn’t always 100% right, but he’s usually not wrong and points out some big picture, systemic things that are broken in education. Even the way we think and discuss education is wrapped up in this broken system. Schools may be filled with wonderful teachers, but the system is filling kids’ heads with a bizarre view of what an education should be. It’s a bizarre view that we were all taught, so we don’t even see how preposterous it is.
Regarding public schools teaching media literacy and critical thinking, you can rant and rave on how it should be, but anything that can be politicized will be, so make alternative plans just in case.