Industrialized Model

As I've been doing the work for my Classroom Management plan, I've been thinking quite a lot about how we go about school. In addition, there has been a lot of talk by some education policy makers about "getting back to the basics" regarding the classroom. Especially in the high school realm, I don't think we ever have left the basics, and those basics seem to be a factory for furnishing workers to industries. Here's what's been swirling around in my mind about most high schools...

• They live and die by the bell, same as the old model of a factory.
• People want "standards"...the products that schools manufacture (students) should be measurably the same.
• Business leaders are weighing in HEAVILY on what they want from students leaving schools. 
• Those business leaders say they want creativity and teamwork, but then many absolutely do not support school models that steer away from the old model: lecture-style, heavily-tested, standards-driven classroom. (To me that seems like they give good sound bites but really want workers who will do what they're told.)
• Most high schools are run lecture-style with little input from students, and some people scoff at/question any other possible models.

We've had the same model and have been on the same path as long as we've been educating students in this country. When you have learned to be successful in that world (even if it's in spite of that world), it's really difficult to envision another model, and so I was glad to see Ed Week's Commentary section take on the subject. I do understand that we are all going to be workers in our lives, but is school's main goal to train those workers or to educate each student to the best of our abilities so that those students can actively make the decisions about where they want to go next? If it's about educating each child, why do we spend so much more effort on assessing the group using the business world's standards than we do on educating each child? If I worry about what the business world wants when I'm working with my students, it seems like I'll be cheating them out of an authentic education.