Actually, I agree with you here 100 percent.
Far too many parents see schools as surrogate parents, and given the inability of the schools to effectively discipline kids (as seen in the article), you can pretty much see where it's inevitably going to hit the fan.
In a lot of cases the parent's anger with the schools for their kids' problems is like blaming the car dealership because you ran out of gas.
One almost universal feature seen in schools (public or private) where kids do well, is a lot of parent involvement--either at schools, at home, or both. And even a working parent can get involved at some level, if they really want to.