What’s the goal of public education?

Every time I approach the question of education or reform, I find that people respond from many different directions, with radically diverse assumptions. Thus, it appears to me that we don’t have a consensus on what, exactly, we’re trying to accomplish with our public education system.

Perhaps I missed the mission statement.

Is the goal a literate society whose citizens can support themselves? To participate in / understand the issues that affect them?

Or is it to compete in a global economy?

Is it to educate to some common denominator? Or instead, is it to take each individual to his/her fullest potential?

Am I way off base and it’s something else altogether?

Without a clear set of commonly defined, understood, and accepted expectations, I don’t know how we can hope to “fix” whatever it is we variously see as broken.

So I’m curious — what do you think the goal is / should be?

(Cross-posted at Polimom Says…)