Here’s the problem, as I see it.
People believe that “education” is something that is given to you or done to you, like a shot of penicillin. As a corollary, they believe if the right education is administered in the right dose for the right duration, that everybody will go to college and become rich.
So, the design of the program is to prepare the students for college.
Unfortunately, actual success (traditionally measured) at an actual college (real curriculum and real grades) requires an IQ of about 115. This is about 16% of white high school students.
So, the design (prepare 100% for college, as opposed to 16%) has failure baked in. This leads to constant bickering about the CAUSES of failure, without examining the PREMISES.
And it also leads to waves of corrective efforts. At the simplest level, making up the grades (promoting everyone, graduating everyone) is the path of least resistance. Higher levels of income correlate with higher levels of fantasy, so we have $200 million high schools with wet DNA labs where no one knows how to think (the West LA-Scarsdale-Newton MA cargo cult).
Multiculti of course makes everything much worse, with much more lying and much higher fantasy levels to support.
Education needs LESS attention, not more. Because education is something you DO, it’s not something that gets done to you. A Quonset hut with some books and a wise teacher can educate everyone who is able, beyond a doubt.
My grandmother (PBUH) taught in NYC Public for 50 years. She was so good, and so beloved, that she had students from 70 years ago at her funeral.
Her answer about the ones who didn’t get educated? “Somebody has to clean the subways”.
She was one smart cookie.
You bring up excellent ‘process’ problems. Yes, the college acceptance system is a powerful driving factor. And that also needs temporary reform.
More fundamentally, if all professors are required to debate once a year as sheduled by a rep of the state legislators or governors [collective decision], then parents can see what kind of person that professor is before funding their childrens’ educations.
What I mean by ‘temporary reform’ is that we can allow certain amendments to automatically sunset after a certain time. We can hope that colleges get straightened up after a while.
Or ... we can count on internet colleges to compete with standard brick-and-mortar universities. Let them rot and get federal money out of higher learning.
Colleges currently monopolize licensing. If state governments and the federal government loosens licensing, such as therapist, etc, with less reliance on college degrees, then the race is on.
I have not formulated a solid plan yet about college entrance ‘reform’ or ‘deregulation’.
But the problem is ‘process’ compared to visualizing what modern education should now look like.