Oh, I am not that familiar with his work, but I know of him. He is a visionary, like Ken Robinson that I wrote about a while ago, that has the same function to inspire people and guide them towards something better. What we have left to figure out is how to get there without destroying the good parts.

Studying towards a big test has been the very essence of Japanese education for decades. That's ironically exactly what it was lauded for in the early 90s as the most successful nation in the field of education (mainly in sciences and maths, but somehow that got lost in translation) - their rigorous approach to the teaching of subject content and its testing. I believe that's when everyone tried to copy the model, and now in the US you have what you have).

And yes, workload in my opinion is one of the biggest reasons our kids have no time to think qualitatively. I always oppose the quantity over quality approach in education, but frankly, some seem to like it because it is not ineffective and, probably more importantly, easier on the teacher.