Ideally, tests that require a student to simply memorize the expected answer should have no place in what we teach when we are trying to teach physics. The reality is that such test-taking skills are rewarded, as students at wealthy suburban and private schools know. But we should not be too proud to teach kids to spot baloney when they are fed it. We should, of course, also work on the menus. What science is is a mystery to most teachers.
Teachers consequently avoid it, and their uncertainty is transmitted to the students.
But as some innovative programs have shown, quantitative work mixed with curiosity-driven questions can really turn kids on. At a joint meeting of the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers, it was stated that we do not know how to deal with the problems of math and science education in big urban schools. But I truly believe we do know many if not most of the ingredients of these problems, and have working models for how to confront and solve them. If every physics graduate student, postdoc, and faculty member made regular visits to local schools, we could have a big impact with a rather small investment of time. We need to move as a community away from a narrow view of these problems to dealing with them on a large scale.