I left a public high school ~10 years ago, it was definitely the case for my school back then. We were maybe given a little booklet on critical thinking at some point and that was about it. Can't speak to other public schools or more recent than that, but I can't imagine the schools worse than where I went putting in a bigger effort. You can argue it's taught all over the curriculum, but most of my teachers didn't really want to challenge us in that way (e.g. English class where you had to have the right themes for a book just because, science/math/history classes where there wasn't really something to question).
Yes, exactly. Also, in any subject where there isn't a clear "wrong" answer, you as a student are free to take up any position as long as you can "back it up".
In theory, that sounds like a decent policy. But in practice, it creates an environment where students just learn to write thoughtful-sounding BS and know they don't really need to work hard to engage with the material or even understand it.
