[IKE]

What percentage of a students education do you believe should be spent learning hands on skills in High School? What would you cut? I see a lot of attacking of standardized tests, but why would schools put such an emphasis on "Standardized tests" if there wasn't some value for someone in those?

Often we push to incentives performance. In order to give out the incentives, we need a measure. Someone decides on the measure, and then incentives are tied to that measure. Folks that are good at "playing the game" may work to get the best incentive as opposed to the less measureable goals.

I think the focus on standardized testing is a resultant of this behaviour. There are several analogies that can be drawn to business. In bothe cases I think you can show short term improvements in the metrics and long term issues arising from an overfocus on those same metrics.

I would love to see more hands on experience, but I would caution folks to be careful about what you might take the place of.