I thought this was going to be about the no-child-left-behind mindset, which results in teachers spending most of their time focusing on the slowest learners and very little time on students who are already at/above grade level. That mindset is certainly common in our school, and learning for the latter students is closer to flatlined than maximized.
Maximizing learning via SR is interesting, but it seems like it's the furthest thing from our kids' teachers' minds.
That's a fair point about what you expected to read. That said, while I agree that "teach to the slowest learners" is common and results in flatlined learning for at/above-grade-level students, I would argue it's somewhat orthogonal to the claim "disagree with the premise of maximizing learning."
If you teach to the slowest learners, then it's still possible you might agree with the premise of maximizing learning (for the slowest learners). So, I can't use "teach to the slowest learners" to argue that many people disagree with that premise in an absolute sense (for all learners).
I considered mentioning in my first post that the school's behavior does not maximize overall learning because such a large portion of the students are at/above grade level. It is possible that their method of teaching the below-grade level students is consistent with maximizing learning for those students. I would think that for students who are behind, you would want to increase engagement/fun in order to increase the likelihood of maximizing learning in the long run. If you just wanted to get their scores up that year, you might focus more on drills instead.
Maximizing learning via SR is interesting, but it seems like it's the furthest thing from our kids' teachers' minds.