I agree on both points. If we limit education on absolute minimum every kid is guaranteed to use, they wont learn all that much and they wont be able to proceed to college nor do non-trivial professional jobs. If you come to college without knowing quadratic equation, you wont be able to keep up with physics classes designed for students who already know elementary school math. If you don't understand for cycle when you are 18, you will have very hard time competing with students who come in already knowing real programming. Duh.

Continuation of that quote is no better. You wont even recognize utility of quadratic equation in more complicated equation (exercise) if you do not understand and remember it - much less google it. You will simply fail at solving it. There is also big difference between people who know history enough to see something suspicious when they see bad history and people who believe everything they read on random discussion forums.

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I think that changing tech school to use because new tech is more convenient to administer is perfectly good reason on itself. I don't know why everyone needs to bs about "transforming education" each time. However, I would much rather have education transformed by people who a.) value learning b.) can explain what quadratic formula is useful for c.) have knowledge of education theory (they dont need to agree with most of it, but they should know what it is they disagree with).