Only the first harry potter movie worked as a good escapist child fantasy where an abused kid is selected to go to a secret magical school. Every sequel after that slowly became more and more dark, and made me question why anyone would willingly send their kid to a place with so much baggage and little security. I tuned out of the series by the 4th movie, just cuz I found Harry and the magic stuff to not be that interesting.
Because it's one of the few places they could (in theory) learn the skills and tools they would need to survive the magical world they live in? You know...assuming they survive the school.
I dunno, I never really had too much of an issue with the idea that "the magical world is incredibly dangerous and deadly" , because the creatures and beings in mythology and magic are pretty much all dangerous, at least the most commonly known in popular knowledge. European culture is filled with cautionary tales involving magical beings, and the end result is often "and then the child died." So that part I don't really take issue with. It's the way the staff was always portrayed as being inept, which, I get when it's a kid's adventure, you have to either simply remove the adults, or make them bumbling idiots (Potter doing both depending on the adults), so that it's up to the kids to save the day. But they didn't always do it well in my opinion.
Again, kids story, so I expect the adults to be a non-issue for the majority of the story, or nothing more than an obstacle/antagonist. But, it could've been done better I think.
USA