Kids: School Too Easy

From the Marshfield News Herald: Millions of kids simply don't find school very challenging, a new analysis of federal survey data suggests. The report could spark a debate about whether new academic standards being piloted nationwide might make a difference.
The findings, out today from the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank that champions "progressive ideas," analyze three years of questionnaires from the U.S. Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress, a national test given each year....
 Robert Pondiscio of the Core Knowledge Foundation, a Virginia nonprofit that pushes for more rigorous academics, says the pressure-cooker environment applies only to a "small, rarefied set" of high school students. The notion that "every American kid is going home with a backpack loaded with 70 pounds of books -- that's not happening."
The data suggest that many kids simply aren't pushed academically: Only one in five eighth-graders read more than 20 pages a day, either in school or for homework. Most report that they read far less.
"It's fairly safe to say that potentially high-achieving kids are probably not as challenged as they could be or ought to be," Boser said.
 http://www.marshfieldnewsherald.com/article/20120710/MNH0101/207100411/Survey-Students-say-school-too-easy?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE&nclick_check=1
From my vantage point, but only as a special education teacher, I see that many kids are not challenged as in the past.  Some schools have very little homework, other schools believe more in computers doing the work rather than trying to figure out how to solve a problem.  Other places that have to deal with proficiency exams teach to the test.
Will the educators do anything about this?  Probably not and if in fact, i think they will go and try and make education easier for the little darlings.  And sadly, that will please many parents.