I fear for our educational future

In responding to a post by Alex, I realized that American education is screwed up. It's not that there aren't many great teachers (among them my wife and many friends), it's that the standards they have to follow are stupid.

The first is this stupid "accountability" based on proficiency testing. These scores go up because the kids are being taught how to beat the tests, not to learn real skills or information. Teachers hate this, and they hate spending time on it.

What's worse is that many board-imposed curricula prohibit anything even remotely experimental or new to be taught. For example, my brain developed thinking in somewhat more abstract terms. When I had to add 47 + 19, my brain saw it as 47 + 20 - 1, which would allow me to quickly arrive at 66. This was unacceptable to my teachers, when I wouldn't show any work (carrying the one and such). The funny thing is, when the authors of workbooks gave you something like 723 + 99, they were thinking in the same terms I was! Add a hundred then subtract one!

I fear for our educational future.