I agree with a lot of your points. There's nothing inherently wrong with keeping tabs on student progress or having a predetermined curriculum to teach. Or high standards to which to aspire. I think what has happened, as I've tried to metaphorically describe in this article, is that we've gotten away from educating children with high standards to teaching standards to children. Again, not semantics; a very real difference. At my school, which I realize I cannot use as a microcosm of the entire American education system, we either discuss children as data points or as people in need of mental help because of the pandemic, etc. We do not talk about teaching or pedagogy of any sort. We do not ruminate on what we do, why we do it, or how we do it. Not often enough, at least in my opinion. Just as the assembly line worker doesn't give two craps about the widgets he's producing as long as they are up to specs, teachers need not feel anything about the job they're doing except satisfaction that certain objectives were met.

There's another phenomenon happening every day in our schools that you're no doubt aware of, and that's a startling absence of accountability in kids. I will just say that I think the reason for it is what I wrote about in my article. We don't ask much of meat. You just have to taste good... in the mouths of those consuming you. If corporate America is happy--or at least satisfied--then public school are doing their jobs. Or at least they think are.

Now, kids DO need to know some things. They do need all the subject matter and skills you talked about. But a lot of the school day is filled with fluff which I think could be better used to develop the character of students and get them vested in their communities at a young age. I'm going to write more on this very soon. Thanks for reading!