Ah, I'm sure what I said got a bit boring, but what I reported is what I saw living through those times. I believe secondary school education was quite different from what the author of this article described. I wouldn't have thought that the NEA was then filled with progressives--more likely conservative in nature.
The topic under consideration then was whether to continue with the classical approach to education (exemplified by Hyman Rickover's viewpoint), or to migrate to a system reconstructed by the progressive, liberal, socialistic--and Godless--view of John Dewey and his supporters. Dr. Benjamin Spock's influence on child-rearing played no small part in getting us to the educational mess we are in today. I have no love for unionism, but the prevailing attitudes toward compensation for teachers, and failure to correct those standards by some other method, brought unions into education as well as into other public services.
I don't know the answer, but I refuse to be identified with an educational system which has no measurable identification of quality of the process and the product.
What offended me was using the same teaching techniques on children and dogs.
Actual teaching methodologies were still secondary to promotion of the teacher union movement.
I make a good retirement income teaching math and science outside of the school system.
There are plenty of opportunities for a smart guy like you.