I honestly think the order of people who care about grades are
1. The Parents.
2. The Colleges
3. The Teachers.
4. The Students.
I speak more for myself in this regard because i have written a long very detailed series of education for public and private schools.
I might send you a link because you seem like you listen. I genuinely believe that so much of the fuss that is being made about all school, public, private and otherwise, these days is a proxy war where the people who its supposedly about - the students - are irrelevant. I'm speaking based on my experience but I truly think that all education - with the exception of college - the actual students don't give a damn about. I went to school in the 1980s and the 1990s and as an estimate, I'd say 70 to 80 percent of them did not give a damn about what they were learning. And speaking for myself I became a well-rounded individual in my field DESPITE all of my primary and high school education, not because of it. I can only imagine its exponentially worse now that everybody has a smartphone.
I think all of the fights these days about curicculum, school boards and whatever books are banned have nothing to do with the students and that most of them are indifferent to it. I know from past experience most high school students don't know where the school library is. I think if some of them saw all the shelves empty they'd just think they'd all be taken out. And - if I'm being honest - most of what I learned in the sciences and math I forgot within days of leaving school for good.
wHAT i THINK school doies is part of the long process of teaching children to live with restrictions. It gets you used to a routine, believing that adults know everything, never questioning authority (my history teachers did not like it when I told them things that they did not know) and getting used to live your life on a schedule. I think the process of education is an inadequate for a learning process altogether. I think school only prepares for adulthood by telling us to do things a t a certain time and place and that you must believe the order things are done is right because older people tell you. I honestly think no student would attend any school if it were strictly up to them.
I don't mean to offend your profession - I have a huge respect for a teachers and the incredibly difficult, neight impossible job you do. But Idon't think we can FIX education before we acknowledge every part of the model is broken.