1)  Peter Drucker believed "Students Should Have Studied What They Do Well"  "Delivering literacy--even on the high level appropriate to a knowledge society--will be an easier task than giving students the capacity and the knowledge to keep on learning, and the desire to do it."... "All it requires is to make learners achieve. All it requires is to focus on the strengths and talents of learners so that they excel in whatever it is they do well."  But schools do not do it. They focus instead on a learner's weaknesses." The New Realities pages 236 and 237. Peter thinks that student who do poorly with math should not be let anywhere near algebra. This should make students happier but remember algebra teachers need jobs.
2) Alfie Kohn "In fact, there isn’t even a positive correlation between, on the one hand, having younger children do some homework (vs. none), or more (vs. less), and, on the other hand, any measure of achievement.  If we’re making 12-year-olds, much less five-year-olds, do homework, it’s either because we’re misinformed about what the evidence says or because we think kids ought to have to do homework despite what the evidence says." Homework: An Unnecessary Evil? ... Findings from New Research
3) Tyler Cowen believed education can create potentially valuable workers by helping them improve their value by using smart machines and that these two are stronger complements than ever. Students may not be able to calculate like computers but we can teach students to be better readers of character and emotion and to be the best interpreters of the masses of information provided by the behavioral sciences and big data. Not all students need to do programming but they need to easily make the most of technology. He sees educators as motivators and online managers rather than as a professor.  From Average is Over, 2013 by Tyler Cower  Could a majority on workers hurt by Geekability add to A. Greenspan's fear of unrest?
4) Harvard originally emphasized rhetorical principles, rote learning/drilling
1869–1909 Number/variety of classes multiplied, lecture system supplanted recitation and students permitted a free course choice
1909–33 "A system of “concentration and distribution...” with general examinations and tutorials was introduced.
1933-53 Breadth emphasized by first general education curriculum
1971–91 Courses chosen from seven areas
2013 Required courses connect to life beyond college

Return on Education Investment Abstract
5 P. Krugman increasing wage premium for higher education over
6) L. Thurow small payoff from little bit more education
7) F. Pryor and D. Schaffer poor graduates got low level jobs
8) C. Murray more investing in our best and brightest
9) A. Greenspan education reform will take many years
10)  James Heckman early childhood development reduce deficits, strengthen economy

5) Paul Krugman "When asked to make economic comments as if he were looking back on 1996 from 2096..." Paul mentioned "...the devaluation of higher education."... "Or consider the panic over downsizing that gripped America in 1996. As economists quickly pointed out, the rate at which Americans were losing jobs in the nineties was not especially high by historical standards. Why, then, did downsizing suddenly become news? Because for the first time white-collar, college-educated workers were being fired in large numbers, even while skilled machinists and other blue-collar workers were in high demand. This should have been a clear signal that the days of the ever-rising wage premium for people with higher education were over, but somehow nobody noticed." The Accidental Theorist and Other Dispatches from the Dismal Science 201
6) Lester Thurow stated "Education is a very lumpy investment where often there is little or no payoff from having a little bit more."  ..."There are big returns to the first years of education (the education where one gains literacy) and big payoffs to the last years of education (a college or graduate degree where one distinguishes oneself from the pack) but only small payoffs to those years of education that move the individual from somewhat below average to somewhat above average." 283 The Future of Capitalism: How Today's Economic Forces Shape Tomorrow's World
7) F. Pryor and D. Schaffer feel "It is those college-educated workers with functional literacy little better than the average high school graduate..."   "... who end up in these lower-level jobs." from Whose Not Working and Why
8) Charles Murray encouraged more investing in our best and brightest in his 1994 book Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. He later reinforced this meritocratic system with "HALF OF THE CHILDREN ARE BELOW AVERAGE, TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE GOING TO COLLEGE, AMERICA'S FUTURE DEPENDS ON HOW WE EDUCATE THE ACADEMICALLY GIFTED, ABILITIES VARY." See  Real-world, Technology-based, Activity-driven, Question-based College Curriculums
9) Alan Greenspan wrote we can't forget about the middle.  "The cost of educational egalitarianism is doubtless high and may be difficult to justify in terms of economic efficiency..." Some achieve more easily at far less cost, than others. "Yet there is a danger in a democratic society in leaving some children out sync with its institutions. Such neglect contributes to exaggerated income concentration, and could conceivably be far more costly to the sustaining of capitalism and globalization in the long run. ." "Much of our skill shortage can be resolved with education reform. But that will take years."  The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World published in 2007 by Penguin Group, pages 406 and 407
See Leaders Educational Observations Throughout History.
10) James Heckman “The highest rate of return in early childhood development comes from investing as early as possible, from birth through age five, in disadvantaged families. Starting at age three or four is too little too late, as it fails to recognize that skills beget skills in a complementary and dynamic way."