I don't think the problems that inspire education reform will go away until a large number people with clout re-conceptualize the whole notion and function of e

I don't think the problems that inspire education reform will go away until a large number people with clout re-conceptualize the whole notion and function of education. Education ends is too conflated with nationalist and career ambitions. If students were given the encouragement and support to complete relevant projects that can translate into attractive college applications or on-the-job skills, students would be better served to enter the workforce and would probably more effectively see the relevance of their actions. It's difficult to test student success and standardized tests, organized by specialist subjects, become irrelevant. Marshall McLuhan (in the sixties) talked about how instant access to information made specialization in education less relevant. He predicted that schools would cease operating under the industrial assumption of specialization. In fact, many other hard boundaries - work/leisure, education/employment - would become blurred and resemble more pre-industrial, and even pre-literate, sensibilities. Unfortunately, technology moves so much slower than ideology, and people are treating the "jobs of the future" as if one learns math, and then one can work in some math-making factory, or something, for the rest of their life. The dichotomy the author presents is irrelevant. Khan academy and mathalicious.com would both serve a project-based curriculum quite well.