>By applying an industrial-age mind-set to 21st-century professionals, many organizations are undermining incentives for workers to be efficient.
Every step of the American education system felt like this.
That's because the American educational system was set up by industrialists to produce a trained workforce, not for some sort of noble philosophical ideal of enlightenment. You'll note that none of the scions of industry attend public school.
Private schools are mostly the same structurally, they just have better tracking/pace since class sizes are smaller, and they can exclude disruptive students.
I don't disagree with you. Buy private shools aren't bespoke tutoring in the tradition of the European aristocracy or student-driven explorations of the world, they are the same lecture/ work/ small project/ test structure of public schools.
Montessori schools do not follow the assembly-line model of education.
Montessori schools are all private because institutionalized educational systems aren't interested in switching their fundamental philosophy of education. There is one exception, the Milwaukee school system. I'm not aware of other places that have tried the same.
It's surprising, but I actually count 91 public non-charter Montessori schools. Often they're magnet schools or 'academies', and it looks like very often just elementary.