"Enforcing a low ceiling" is a very bias conclusion, with no logical support provided here.
The school system as we know it is a mass education "factory" system. There is and always will be cracks for students to fall through. Furthermore, it is not clear that the system ever served top students very well -- I emphasize issues around the "ceiling" is not actually new.
How to deal with those cracks in the system is a complex topic. But that hardly matters for purposes of this discussion because...
The school system is under intense pressure to produce results in the form of standardized test scores. What are they supposed to do? They focus on inching up the scores of those below the median, of course.
That has exactly nothing to do with "enforcing a low ceiling". The school system simply no longer cares about the brightest students, while the taxpaying voters are clamoring for those average test scores to climb. Individual teachers would love to care, but they are generally not allowed to until those scores go up first.
The school system as we know it is a mass education "factory" system. There is and always will be cracks for students to fall through. Furthermore, it is not clear that the system ever served top students very well -- I emphasize issues around the "ceiling" is not actually new.
How to deal with those cracks in the system is a complex topic. But that hardly matters for purposes of this discussion because...
The school system is under intense pressure to produce results in the form of standardized test scores. What are they supposed to do? They focus on inching up the scores of those below the median, of course.
That has exactly nothing to do with "enforcing a low ceiling". The school system simply no longer cares about the brightest students, while the taxpaying voters are clamoring for those average test scores to climb. Individual teachers would love to care, but they are generally not allowed to until those scores go up first.