New NM Ed Sec Desiginate headed in the same direction

In the Journal this morning, an op-ed by NM's new education secretary designate Ryan Stewart, link.  To which I responded in comment and here.

It is the model that no longer works. It has not worked for a long, long time.

It turns out that you can no longer take two or three dozen kids who have nothing more in common than their age and zip code, and educate them in unison.

You cannot standardize the most individual traits of human beings; their capacity to and interest in, learning. Normal healthy children do not learn in unison. They cannot be made to learn in unison.

Untold amounts of time and energy are being consumed in classrooms by teachers trying to keep everyone learning the same thing at the same time at the same speed. Wasted is a better word.

Even if you could get kids to learn in unison; why would you want to? The relentless effort to kids to think together is pointless. For what are they practicing? Whenever else in their life will they be expected to think in unison with total strangers?

How can standardizing learning provide students with opportunities to pursue personal interests; one of the single greatest motivators in learning? There is no such thing as a disengaged learner. Engaging the learner is the first and most important priority. There is nothing about learning in unison that is in the least bit motivating to young learners.

Public education needs a new mission; to create independent lifelong learners at the earliest opportunity.

That interest is opposed by those who make money or enjoy power under the current system. It is also opposed by those who fear a really well and widely educated populace.

If "cemetery seating"; five rows of six desks, upon which lie the same book, opened to the same page and more often than not, with a bored student sitting in it, staring at blankly at the book and teacher is such a great idea, why is nobody defending it?