I can say that this is not taught in education schools and is specifically debunked in most Psychology of Learning and
Psychometrics classes taught to teachers.
I think you’re conflating two unrelated things, the political and economic motivations that alter curricula and the development of new or better curricula. If schools have to “teach the test” in order to retain funding, as is the current model in many areas, the curriculum will shift to reflect that reality, and since parents are constantly unhappy with these tests and since there’s a metric fuckton of money in creating these tests for a company like Pearson, there’s a lot of cruft that gets thrown in the mix that means the decisions that get made are democratic in the purest sense: They give everyone a stomachache, except for private enterprise. This is why everything tends to shift a lot.
Now charter schools are the new fad. Never mind that they drain money from public schools and have yet to really demonstrate a significant advantage over our current crappy way of funding schools. Meanwhile your kids are taught by people. Those people are qualified, trained, and licensed to teach effectively and they’re the first to be treated like corrupt garbage in public discourse about education in the past ten years. The effect of trying to unify curricula and disempower teacher’s unions means that a lot of times teachers have to go along with bad curricula or teaching to the test (which I have yet to see a teacher think this is the best idea.) People think it’s because teachers don’t like having their salaries tied to the performance of people they cannot control. And they’re right, but it also means teachers have less time to take certain diversion and use the full range of their skills to teach more effectively.
All of these factors make for a delicious turd soup that makes people consider home-schooling.
