“Throughout history and until very recently, most people worked with their hands—not with their heads—and so they didn’t need these analytical skills in their daily life. Many generations of the most successful students learned how to think more often from the kinds of conversations they had with parents at the dinner table or family trips they took than in school. They came to school smart and motivated and left the same, and whatever “value added” some teachers may have provided often was and continues to be a random act of excellence—at least in public schools. Private schools were established to educate the elite and so have always demanded more of students, but these schools educate less than 5 percent of the high school student population.”