Are Education Standards Too Hard or Too Easy? Should Schools Focus on Increasing Graduation Rates Even if it Means Making Classes Easier?

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"There’s certainly nothing wrong with expecting that all students who graduate from a given school, system, or state have somewhat equivalent academic abilities. So what’s the problem? To put it simply, students are not standardized. Their minds are not standardized. Their abilities are not standardized. Their ambitions are not standardized. Expecting to take the vast diversity of human academic experience and force it into a Procrustean box is a recipe for unhappiness. Education reformers love to talk about dynamism and innovation, yet they frequently push for standards that ensure education will involve anything but. And the consequences are clear."

This paragraph comes from an article on Medium.com by Freddie deBoer titled: "The Educational Standardization Trap"

https://medium.com/@freddiedeboer/the-educational-standardization-trap-25aca6c0121

Zac and Don discuss whether school's, in the age of having so many academic standards, make it too difficult for students to pass required classes and graduate. They discuss whether American society can handle school failure when it happens to them. They also discuss what the ultimate purpose of school is and whether the current educational model works well enough.

Zac and Don also reference ideas from the following books:

The Case Against Education

https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/dp/0691196451/ref=sr_1_1?crid=S49QW1A7H4S2&dchild=1&keywords=the+case+against+education&qid=1593142811&sprefix=the+case+against+ed%2Caps%2C169&sr=8-1

The Meritocracy Trap

https://www.amazon.com/Meritocracy-Trap-Foundational-Inequality-Dismantles/dp/0735221995/ref=sr_1_1?crid=M10VJA2ZX9I3&dchild=1&keywords=the+meritocracy+trap&qid=1593142862&sprefix=the+merit%2Caps%2C178&sr=8-1