Readicide Chapter 1

As I am reading this chapter I keep asking myself, "And....we have known this but what can we do about it"?  Gallagher briefly addresses this at the end of the chapter, but then states that this will be talked about throughout the following chapters.  I hope that the rest of this book is more of an offering of what ways he would change the content expected for students to be responsible for rather than just focus on what others have done wrong to create this problem.  There is always someone to blame for just about everything-even natural disasters that are an act of God somehow get blamed on the government, scientists, humanity, human error, etc.  I don't think that anyone is sitting in an ivory tower somewhere dreaming up ways to make it's youth less educated than other countries' youth.  I believe that people do the best that they know how and trying something new is better than playing the blame game.  If memorizing facts isn't the way to become educated and standardized tests need to be thrown away, then what is a better way to assess the masses?  He states that it is not standards that are the problem, it is the amount of standards expected to know, then what part of English grammar would he have English teachers leave out?  Or what elements would he have taken off the periodical table?  Or what war would he have high school students not learn about?  I am not saying that I agree or disagree with him, I am just saying that if you have such a huge issue with something offer up suggestions to a new curriculum and a new way to evaluate and gauge progress/learning.  MW