This is a public school in the United States

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What's hilarious is that these guys still get better test scores across all races than the unionized schools do.

I would think that teaching designed solely to improve scores on those tests would do that, yes.

I guess its a bad thing to have students focused on accumulating information and knowledge and having that determined via test taking(given a lack of better ways to assess knowledge and information accumulation). Should have known that throwing paint at pictures was a much more productive way for students to learn.

Maybe we need to convince all the universities and employers that is what should be higher in their determinations for admissions/employment because being able to answer a long division question on a piece of paper or be able to write coherent paragraphs that demonstrate knowledge of a subject is just way overrated.

But things like mathematics and formal/standardised 'persuasive writing' are, to an extent, overrated on a societal level relative to things like creative writing, art, music, and increasingly history. It's a similar phenomenon to how a college education is increasingly perceived as necessary to be a productive member of society with the hope of good employment even though it's if anything less affordable than ever and no more useful for many occupations than it ever was. The simple fact is that not every facet of society requires or even calls for the kinds of skills that our schools are placing almost fetishistic emphasis on through this sort of testing.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Mathematics is overrated as compared to the arts? Seriously? Fair point about the teaching of history though.

I mean, insofar as one's employment is socially overrated compared to one's hobbies, interests, way of being with family and friends, and so on. Obviously mathematics is important for many if not most of the most remunerative types of work these days and I wasn't trying to claim otherwise.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Mathematics is overrated as compared to the arts? Seriously? Fair point about the teaching of history though.

I mean, insofar as one's employment is socially overrated compared to one's hobbies, interests, way of being with family and friends, and so on. Obviously mathematics is important for many if not most of the most remunerative types of work these days and I wasn't trying to claim otherwise.

I'm sorry but employment is not overrated. Unless you have a trust fund. Then disregard what I said.

Employment is only not overrated because the entirety of the present society is structured around the idea of full-time secular employment in the general workforce as the only way to fulfillment. You really don't see any problem with expecting people to spend every waking hour working or thinking about work? That is in fact what's happening, increasingly as human time is commodified (not that it wasn't seen as a commodity already...).