High Schools are Obsolete

When I was in high school it seemed that things were fine. Sure there were the usual critics of public schools and things weren't always optimal, but for the most part things were good. It seems that in the 9 years since I graduated high school things have gotten worse - or at least the critics want us to think they have. Perhaps one of the worst criticisms came today from MS founder Bill Gates when he called high schools obsolete.

As a youth pastor I deal with a good crop of current high school students and very rarely do I hear them complaining about school being difficult at all. There are the traditional complaints about teachers being jerks - or worse - but almost never complaints about school being difficult. Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment, but I feel that school should be somewhat difficult or else you're not really going to learn much. It is frustrating when I use vocabulary that should be well within their reach and they don't have a clue what it means. But I question if this is completely the school's fault. Maybe we have a situation where parents have so pushed for their kids to all succeed - in such a way that the school itself is threatened by the very possibility of student's failure - that the schools are no longer pushing for greater learning, but more for students appear to achieve. I'm glad to see some states instituting standardized testing, I don't think it will fix everything, but it will at least bring the schools up to a minimal standard of achievement. What do you think? Do schools suck or are parents trying to protect their children from failure too much?