Did. Officially, some still do. But it's now become a very much fake elitism, with a major push for inclusion and the mixing of ages and backgrounds in the same classrooms. The average level is in freefall too.

You're right. I'm in the EU, my family is mostly teachers and all too often I find myself outraged at the lack of vision, the incompetence, the ineptitude of my countries' officials to address the decline. Instead they opt for implementing the fad of the day(so-called '21st-century skills', 'critical thinking', 'social skills'). 25% of 15yo can not functionally read and/or do math well enough to properly function in society. This has been growing since the 70s and it still continues.