As a high school teacher who is continually fettered to the "norms" of students' lack of education, I find Lewis to be dead on. Every day I am faced with students who were passed from one class to the next in middle school so they could stay with their chronological/age peers rather than their intellectual peers. Students who have not passed ONE class in their ENTIRE middle school experience (F's across the entire spectrum) are then dumped into high school where it is all about high stakes testing, merit based performance evaluations (for the teachers not the students) and the students are slapped in the face with the bitter reality that seat time means nothing at all unless they learn while they are in that seat. While they are given 170 hours +/- in a calendar year to not only make up the deficiencies but also cram in all the new ideas and skills for their particular class or curriculum, teachers are not allowed to hold the line of excellence or to hold parents and students accountable.