People tend to think of education in America as a big vegetable garden, where every sprout can grow to its full potential and find its best utility on maturity.

People tend to think of education in America as a big vegetable garden, where every sprout can grow to its full potential and find its best utility on maturity. It is more like a lumber mill that produces uniform boards, some with more knots and bits of bark showing than others, but all of the same nominal dimensions that have not changed much since the 1800s. We may see some change with the advent of MOOCs (if they spread to earlier grades) and with the possibility of publishers being able to afford to produce local-to-each-state textbook elements, but the combined influence of D. of Ed. funding, Texas and California textbook approval, teachers' unions, and ever-growing administrative inertia is a lot to overcome.