[StopTheWorld]

There is a push, which has been around for decades, to measure how effective teaching is for a school system taking in taxpayer dollars. This is measured via standardized tests. The tests are generally passed via testing and repetition. Often this becomes the metric for measuring teacher, principal, superintendent performance and school funding. So these authorities begin having the students memorize, do repetition and testing - and testing not to guide a student's progress, but to reward or punish them. The school authorities have the students due this to pass the standardized tests, at the behest of those who have authority over the school authorities and want measurement.

So then the question is, is this the best way to learn in general? You can read studies of education including John Dewey's from over a century ago to see that it is not. The purpose of the education system is not to educate, but to do this thing described in the first paragraph. Nowadays the public schools are contending with charter schools, vouchers and the like, so there's a more injection of profit, religious fundamentalism and the like in the educational taxes people pay than there was a few decades ago.

[mcmoor]

On the other hand we've butchered standardized testing so hard that people report high school graduates as useless. While testing may result in test-focused learning, not testing seems to result in... not learning at all. In the end it's hard to teach someone who's not interested and we have to decide whether we want to force them.

[purple-leafy]

Really well informed take, appreciate your comment. Nail -> head