I liked school. It seems like most rationalists did not like school. Maybe they are so intelligent that being walked through the exact steps of how to do or think something feels like oppression? I didn't like elementary school, but I much enjoyed my time in middle and high school. I liked being taught stuff in 50 minute blocks. There's a nice routine to it, and I liked seeing what new stuff we would learn each day. (I'm just providing this as a data point on my experience, I'm not debating whether or not school is bad in general or needs to be reformed)
What I mean is physical abuse from other peers, and teachers doing nothing about it or continuing to put the affected people next to each other.
(I also feel like the differences in how much it effects the person is not significant, considering being physically contained, and still well being capable of being intimidated/yelled at or "in trouble" or having to defend yourself with accusations or litigating evidence of true events, was more mentally damaging, since there's no adult's frame of reference and you fully feel the whole world is in this building)
We could choose our electives to some extent but we always had to take the four main classes (English, math, science, social studies), and even for the electives we don't have complete freedom because there are certain requirements we had to meet to graduate (at least two years of foreign language, for example). So the choices were very constrained.