U

Students don't want to be there.
Teachers don't want to be there.

So what's not working in schools (everywhere) is the bribery, coercion and behavior modification? No surprise then, that the expert solution is better compulsion and manipulation, invest our national treasure in more carrots and sticks! -- the teachers and kids of America are a pesky breed of surly mules to be driven to market any way we can get them there. Otherwise, institutions can't make money on them!

[Raising my hand obediently, because I spent a couple of decades being socialized in school myself] --
As a free-thinking individual, may I ask a couple of questions?

For the moment let's leave aside the Alfie Kohn issue of carrots and sticks not "working" in learning and education. Apparently they work in schooling, to at least keep the parking lots full every day and the money flowing.

What's free, open, democratic, progressive, or academic (much less creative culture-fostering) about all this again? Are even liberal-leaning school thinkers now satisfied to equate "something that works" to keep staff and students at school despite their compelling desire not to be there, with something that works to create an educated populace?