> If everyone gets 90% or better on a test that reflects what you're supposed to learn then it should be celebrated as a teaching success. It is not a problem.
Then perhaps there should have been more available to be learned. If most people are above 90%, then you're holding the best back. (If you're saying that more should be taught, but not be on the test... Why?)
The only way for everyone to reach full understanding at the same time is for everyone to be the same or for some people to have been held back. I view the latter as being far more achievable than the former. I would also say that holding the best back... is probably not what we want the #1 ranked University in the world to be doing.
> A perfect educational system would have every student getting 100% on every test, right? That's the ideal. Unless, of course, that the purpose of the educational system isn't actually to educate people but instead to weed out certain classes of people.
No, a perfect educational system would not have every student getting 100% on every test because not every student is the same and also such a test fundamentally provides no information to the tester.
A perfect system would probably have every student on an individual (or near-individual) learning schedule, and even there I would expect perfectly calibrated tests to average around 50% with adjustments as required for psychological impact or to improve recall. From that, you can identify what elements need to be covered again, and what can be skipped when moving forward because they are already known.
> "We want the best" is what every employer will always say but the truth is that they really only need someone who can do the job. We as a society put way too much importance and faith in credentials.
This is probably correct for your average community college. It might be correct for a average state school.
When you get to 'literally the number one Univeristy on the planet', perhaps employers are also actually looking for the best people on the planet.