Dewey argues that common education is the basis for building common culture. But it was also Dewey who believed that learning must be child centered, that the questions should originate with the child rather than the teacher. We have tried for generations now to have it both ways. An education common to all and meaningful to each. It seems to me a matter of entropy as much as ambivalence.
Systems decay, the good intentions of over-worked teachers tire.
Much easier to set up the questions and then teach the answers. Examinations are the outcome of this pedagogical entropy. The sacred collective justification for putting the individual aside in the name of a common measure. I wonder what Montaign would write today, reflecting on the educational progress of the last 400 years. Certainly he'd be more pleased with what's being done in this country than in his own.