At some point this grew beyond parenting style. Now it's a feature in parts of the educational system, which has become its own type of snowplow.

I have a doctoral degree and I teach multiple disciplines at a public institution of higher learning. I see how early college academies and other mega-prep high schools - including and maybe especially the public ones - market themselves to parents. I see how they essentially shove students through courses of study that they are not entirely prepared for. I've had multiple students from US News gold-ranked high schools fail my college courses *more than once.*

I've also seen how even our college encourages, in some ways, our divisions and faculty to make our programs more "attractive" (read: easier, cheaper) so our retention rates will be higher. While I sympathize with students about college costs and extra-educational commitments, I'm also repeatedly appalled at how utterly unprepared so many students are for basic college life. People don't know how to read a syllabus. Honor students are shocked and horrified when they reach upper division lit classes and find they have to read a novel a week. Many students can't follow basic instructions. Every semester, I have students who should know better who get caught red-handed committing plagiarism because apparently the only way they feel they can compete is by cheating.

This isn't to say that all or even most of my students are awful, but it does speak to the willingness of some in our "industry" (ugh) to hot-potato issues/students along because it makes their jobs easier to pretend like Brick and Bunny are geniuses...when they're not.

Because even the smart kids are "taught to the test" but not taught how to think critically.

This is more true than you know. High school students become more stressed over a creative project or assignment where they cannot google the answer or regurgitate spoon-fed information back for a grade. They can't think outside the box without some major prompting. And adults have made them this way: too much standardized testing, AP/Dual Credit grabs to boost the the GPA, taking courses they aren't even interesting in just to stay in the Top 10 or Top 10%, etc. If it can't be quantified, then it has no value, sadly.