Free education is out there for anyone who wants it and has the motivation to get it.
Hint: you're soaking in it.
The Internet gives us access to a significant portion of the accumulated knowledge of the human race, and access to knowledgeable mentors and colleagues around the world. You can get it free at your local library.
True, those educational resources are largely avalable thanks to those evil profit-oriented tech companies, but one can't have everything.
Free education is out there for anyone who wants it and has the motivation to get it.
I think you're oversimplifying.
Thanks to the Internet, today we have the best virtual reference library available in the history of humanity. That solves one problem, but it introduces another: information overload.
Quality of teaching has always been a big influence on the quality of learning, but the emphasis is changing. Teaching has always been valuable because those with more knowledge/experience and the ability to convey that knowledge/experience effectively to someone else can help that other person to learn. Today, with better access to raw information, there is less need for teachers to play that role, but it is more valuable than ever to have a knowledgeable guide who can help the student to navigate the mass of information available and to choose which aspects to prioritise for best results at that stage in their personal development.
Information overload exists, but I don't think it's the problem here. There are plenty of garden paths on the internet, Khan Academy being just one, where a path is set for a student to follow and learn something with their hand being held by a competent teacher. You can also find willing and competent tutors (usually free!) by googling for a forum on the subject of interest.
I think the problem is closer related with bad genetics and laziness, and these aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. This isn't the whole picture but it captures a lot more than "information overload".
I don't really disagree with anything you've said there, but I don't think what you're describing scales to the entire population. I believe it's important to give every child a solid foundation to build on as they grow and develop their own specialised interests. I believe that doing that efficiently and effectively requires, and probably always will require, a systematic and professional education system at school age.
Of course it's good for children to have other options and to take advantage of whatever unique opportunities they might have, but if even 10% of children interested in a subject started asking elementary questions about it on Internet forums the way they can in a classroom, the forums would collapse. Likewise, if someone wants to educate their own children in subjects they know well or to hire excellent personal tutors, I'd be the last person to deny any parent the right to do what they think is best for their child, but most children aren't lucky enough to have parents so academically gifted or wealthy and so won't have those particular opportunities.
In fact, it seems to me that the only conceivable way to fix that, so that relying on a specialist teaching profession wasn't as fundamental as it is today and every child could enjoy that kind of personal attention, would be to educate the previous generation who are now parents to a high enough standard and then make sure that they had enough time to spend with their children that they could take on more of the role that school teachers play today. I don't know if that could ever work in practice, but for sure it would require a ground-up rewrite of basic societal norms that would take generations to achieve.
I agree with you on having a systematic base for children, there's also an argument to be made for the prison-aspect of schools where school keeps less well-off children off the streets and not starving. I don't think it should last until 18, though, and I really think it should be nothing more than a base. That means the "four" R's: reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic, and 'rogramming. (This relates to the other topic of HN: can every human regardless of IQ or other genetic factors learn at least the basics of each of these? My answer is currently no, but clearly some students we might want to place in the "no" category really just need more time/perspective than others.)
So here's a solution that builds from the free core competencies program. After competency is achieved in those, give them a free laptop which has access to free public wifi (which may for the Greater Good have certain things restricted (and anyone smart enough to get around the restrictions is probably smart enough we don't have to worry about them)) and can be recharged freely at various charging areas. (e.g. libraries.) Allow corporations to setup and finance trade schools for various professions, and let the market decide what programs people take. If corporation X is in the business of plumbing and needs more plumbing, they can offer incentives to take their plumbing program (lower fee compared to other programs, even zero fee or negative fee (paying to become a plumber), future contract-bound promises of a job, etc.). If corporation Y is in the business of basket weaving and decides they don't need any new workers in the near-or-distant future, they can just not fund any program for basket weavers and no one will spend time trying to become one only to find out later to their dismay that their skills aren't in demand. There's still a place for the classic university of research and discovery and intellectualism (not the modern university of partying and drug experimenting and "get the paper to get a non-minimum-wage job"), but freed from the burden of low-quality students they can operate with less funds and more output. Would this scale? Would it be better than current affairs?
I'm not sure where you arrive at forums collapsing under questions. What is StackOverflow? Would it collapse if it had an order of magnitude more questions? I also think students are more likely to ask questions when they're behind a computer than in a classroom based on my observations as a student from K-12 and college that students don't tend to ask many questions in class.
Your idea of improving parental responsibility of parents today is interesting and I could see forcing responsibility upon parents having a large effect in the near-term--we don't have time for generations. The viable methods of force are probably too unpalatable for most people unfortunately. Apart from mandatory education standards for the parent and spending time with children, breeding restrictions could also be put in place as well as making it harder to get divorced. Breeding restrictions are also easy to enforce because RISUG for men is quick and easy and lasts ~10 years. But I doubt the US government in its current form would ever do such a thing. One thing it could do that would help the people-who-shouldn't-be-having-kids problem is not letting children be seen as a tax credit / welfare check.
Hint: you're soaking in it.
The Internet gives us access to a significant portion of the accumulated knowledge of the human race, and access to knowledgeable mentors and colleagues around the world. You can get it free at your local library.
True, those educational resources are largely avalable thanks to those evil profit-oriented tech companies, but one can't have everything.