How about eliminate grades but only have standardized exams? Standardized exams are less susceptible to the grade fiddling.

Then they spend the whole year “studying” for the standardized test and learn nothing. That’s how it currently is and I don’t see that changing. Standardized exam scores are utilized for funding.

A kid takes a French class. Can he speak French afterwards? Can he read/write in French? I guess that's how you'd know if he learned it. Is that a test? I guess so but I'd like to see grades take a backseat to actual learning. Maybe that's a bad position to take.

I think we have the same idea: stupid grades that don't measure actual results are bad.

Not that I'm salty, but I always had poor grades because I rarely if ever did homework. But I aced the tests, so why bother?

Yup. There should be fast tracks and slow tracks. If I already know the material, I get to advance. No need to hold everyone back.

It's too bad I didn't have the language to debate consequentialist vs deontological ethics with my 6th grade math teacher.

But now nobody can say whether any curriculum is better.

Language curricula are not any more effective (i.e. pretty terrible) at teaching language than they ever have been. So since these data-driven improvements haven't shown up yet, we shouldn't be worried about risking them.