A few years ago here in Wisconsin a home-schooled kid won the national spelling bee. A Wisconsin paper then interviewed a Wisconsin public high school teacher for his reaction. He sneered that someone memorizing a bunch of words didn’t prove anything. You can bet that if it was one of his students, the school would probably have erected a statue of the student. After reading the teacher’s comments, I would have loved to kick him right where the sun doesn’t shine.
That’s where he deserves to be kicked. He and those like him are the reason good teachers are slandered.
I remember reading an article about a small school in Illinois that had the best test scores in the state. The principle was asked how they did it. He answered something to the effect that their budget would only pay for teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic..