In the modern nation state, public education functions as a sort of civic immunization.
By inculcating standardized values into a large portion of the population, public education allows a certain “herd immunity”, creating the mental illusion of the state based on shared values.
Whether the citizens ultimately embrace those values, or rally against, they still have been taught those values as a base and will mentally participate in the state’s shared values, or paradigm, as adult citizens.
As the number of adult citizens which were taught the standardized values of the state as children declines, so will the state, ultimately fracturing into balkanized segments, slipping towards regional or cultural fragmentation and cultural medievalism i.e. mental city state paradigms which exist within the physical bounds of the state, but which are often counter to the state’s values.