The Purpose of Schooling

[Empty Glass]

I've been meaning to pose this question to my fellow Avatarians for a while, but it wasn't until I saw Mune's [now old] signature that I decided to finally do it.

I've been studying education a lot in my university classes lately and how it ought to be improved. (I'm considering becoming a teacher, or at least working in that field.) One of the very first questions I was asked in a particular class was "Why do we have schools?" Perhaps it seems obvious at first, but it actually merits some deep thought.

Some answers that came up in the class:
-Schools prepare us with the necessary skills to get a career and earn a salary to live on.
-Without schooling, a society's structure would not transmit itself to the new generation and would eventually collapse, thus order is kept. (This is one of John Dewey's arguments in a very rough nutshell.)
-Schools foster civic engagement and teach one the laws, rights, and responsibilities of living in a given country (i.e. American students are taught the Bill of Rights and such).
-Schools teach one how to think critically and are important purely for the sake of developing minds.

So what I'm curious to hear from everyone is what they think schooling's purpose currently is and whether it should be that way. I imagine this discussion might turn into how schooling could be made better for the present and for the future, and that's perfectly fine.

Keep in mind - "school" is not synonymous with "education," for learning takes place outside of school as much as it does within it (if not more so). Families, religious congregations, public libraries, etc. are all institutions where education occurs.