It's a complicated feedback loop, obviously. Society is petty and bureaucratic, hence schools have to be petty and bureaucratic in order to teach how to navigate society? Partially, but partially society is petty and bureaucratic because schools are petty and bureaucratic and people are trained to consider such systems normal and good. (In fact, schools seem a lot pettier and more bureaucratic than the rest of the world, though it depends on your perspective.)
I don't think the world would collapse if we had entire generations coming out of school ill-equipped to handle petty bureaucracy, especially if the tradeoff was that those generations are smarter and better educated about things that matter.
If school's sole purpose is to create academic machines out of the students, I would not have a comment. But life is more than that; we DO have to deal with other people. Being 'smarter' should also mean becoming better socially aware as well, I'd hope. In the end, there will be different levels of intelligence between people. Communicating and executing the best solution requires some social mean to convince or plant the seeds of evaluation to many other people for their understanding, less we fall back to the an inferior solution (playing on emotions, being 'pc' as oppose to discussing reality..), or worse, violence.
“The intelligence of the creature known as a crowd, is the square root of the number of people in it.” --Terry Pratchett
I think this is an argument for grading students on knowledge rather than compliance. Forcing students to serve time in the school system as though they were felons doesn't teach social awareness. It doesn't teach you how to navigate the bureaucracies in society. It teaches you to submit to authority.
When I talk about 'navigating the bureaucracy', I do not mean 'following the rules'. I mean something more analogous to 'hacking the system'. My definition of social awareness is, to some degree, not allowing arbitrary societal restraints to prevent you from making wealth and meaningful connections. In this sense, the single best lesson a student can learn wrt bureaucratic hurdles is that there is a better way.
Personally, I hope this doesn't describe a trend that swings too far in the other direction; smart assholes are just as bad as well-meaning idiots. I'd rather work with (and try to be) a smart, courteous person.
I don't think the world would collapse if we had entire generations coming out of school ill-equipped to handle petty bureaucracy, especially if the tradeoff was that those generations are smarter and better educated about things that matter.