In the text, we first recall the historical contexts of changes in public education, by recalling them to shape the distance necessary to reflect on the current solstices and transformations taking place in this area. One of the main tasks of a universal and uniform school in a modernizing Europe was to ensure equal educational start for all children. In neoliberal reality, this task ceased to be obvious, and with the significant participation of parents, the foundations of the school’s public character were undermined. Parents from a politically and economically dominant middle class, seeking to gain an advantage over their children, simply do not want public school. The public school defense is therefore easily marginalized. Using the example of recent reforms (e.g. American), we show how schools are no longer places where people belonging to different layers or social classes can create a common world. From this perspective, we analyze issues arising from the questioning of neoliberal social policy that has taken place in recent years. In Poland, it finds expression in, among others in the electoral victory of the grouping (Law and Justice – PiS), aiming to restore the previously overlooked social groups to their rightful place in public space. One could expect that the style of the previous educational policy will therefore be replaced by a more egalitarian, equality policy, preventing unjustifiable selections limiting the life chances of ‘lessborn’ children. However, PiS education policy goes in the opposite direction and expands the system’s selection strategies (elite high schools, no more “mass” access to schools, etc.). Trying to find out the reasons for this contradiction, we focus our attention on the profits that in public discourse brings – as practiced today – the replacement of society by the nation.