Is American Education Brainwashing Our Kids?

I've found interesting the post written in Refugees From the City, not only because they generously picked a post we wrote back in the 2005, but the lengthy explanation about what John the Scientist calls, Edumacation and the Southern Man.

This "L" republican libertarian, after traveling around the globe cannot say our educational system is brainwashing kids. "The educational system in this country was not set up to brainwash people." And he continues:

The US educational system was set up to cram facts down throats before kids dropped out in 8th grade. It evolved from that in the 50s with the push after Sputnik, but only slightly. In point of fact, the educational system has been dominated by liberal progressive thinkers since Thomas Dewey started preaching child-centered education and denigrating content knowledge back in 1916. Businesses have been calling for better educated workers for most of the 20th Century, and never more so than now. To claim that the Dewey-inspired system of today with its emphasis on self-esteem and lack of emphasis on content is designed by business to create docile factory workers flies in the face of evidence. In fact it’s a level of thinking akin to that of conspiracy theorists. We have a term where I’m from for people who create mental models based on stuff they read in books and never question with real observations: “educated beyond your intelligence”.

What are your thoughts on this matter? Is your educational system doing something ins this direction?