Think about it this way -- up until recently lots of people were getting by doing menial jobs. Now more and more people are getting higher education and are doi

Think about it this way -- up until recently lots of people were getting by doing menial jobs. Now more and more people are getting higher education and are doing jobs that require critical thinking. So people with less than average intelligence who would be fine doing simple mechanical jobs in the past are now forced to do office jobs just to get by. Not only that, but people no longer can rely on just learning your job and doing it all your life. More important is your ability to be flexible and able to do things you have not done before -- and this puts more pressure on your ability to think critically. Yes, you need to know something about everything and it is valuable to know a lot about something. But nowadays this "a lot about something" is very specialised and you will learn it doing your job. Schools are just lazy IMO. Teachers and students are forced into standardised process which makes administration easier and makes it easier to navigate racism and discrimination issues but is very poor at allowing any free thinking or understanding in the students. As usual, the brightest people are going to be fine and the worst are going to fail anyway. The issue is with the masses in the middle who need this bit of help.