Yong has done some interesting homework that I think reinforces my comments. Check out his observations HERE.
I have a lot of opinions regarding education but high on my list is the belief that we have to stop expecting ALL students to be good in ALL subjects. It reminds me of the story of the animal school where all the animals had to take the same classes. "The duck was very good at swimming, better than the teacher, in fact. He received passing grades in running and flying, but was hopeless in climbing, so they made him drop swimming so that he could practice climbing. After a while he was only average at swimming, but average is still acceptable, at least in school, and nobody worried much about it except the duck." The valedictorian was was, "an abnormal eel that could swim exceedingly well and also run, climb and fly a little had the highest average and was valedictorian." Go Figure!