The first problem is that the material we're teaching is boring, uninspiring, and useless, and that problem exists because boring, uninspiring, useless material is the easiest thing to teach.

I don't disagree, but I also don't totally agree with you. I think there's a certain amount of resistance you'll get out of making children do things they don't want to do, all day, 180+ days a year, making the issue of "inspiring, useful material" moot. I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being in 11th grade. I stopped after 30 pages and would've been content if this asshole Kundera shut the hell up and never wrote another goddamn thing. I then reread the book 4 years later (remember you nudging me to read some Kundera kleinbl00?) and it rearranged the contents of my skull. I have reread it several times now, including stuff by different authors my higher level English teacher assigned us, and I have a qualitatively different reaction to all of it.

I think you say it later in your post that "Education not being inspiring is a firmly upper-middle class problem..." and I agree. It's a luxury to follow your academic curiosity, be tested and challenged by able teachers, when you go home to roaches crawling through your hair at bedtime, a screaming match between Mom and her boyfriend, and McDonald's for dinner -- maybe.