There's five minutes I'll never get back...

what the hell is a Homestar Runner?

It seems difficult to me to develop intellectual and cognitive capacities absent the opportunity to practice and thus develop and hone those abilities. How does one learn to analyze if there is nothing to perform analysis on? How does one learn to reason absent the formulae requiring it? How does one develop aspirations if never shown anything inspiring?

A mechanic whose spent his life working on cars from the 1960's and 70's never bothering to retrain, will be hopelessly lost under the hood of the modern car. Certain things are familiar, certain principles remain the same but at the same time too much has changed for the mechanic to perform all but the most basic of tasks successfully. If a person wants to make a long term career out of software development, they absolutely have to maintain a practice of continual learning.

Little is black and white. Most common, is a spectrum of gray. But since the discussion was simplified binary to terms of good job vs. bad job, so too I simplified my answer to good employee vs worthless employee. You can complicate it if you want but the principle still carries most of the weight. If your skills are as common as dust, or as needed as a heat lamp in the Sahara at mid-day you will not be a good employee, you should not expect a good job.

Mundanes don't get to join all the clubs, but then in a similar fashion most geeks would make a piss poor brick layer. I'm sorry but that's reality. His whining rant however, doesn't understand the reality that even within software development there actually is a broad spectrum of ability. You have a range of people from the Donald Knuths to the lowly monkey bashing on the keyboard producing bottom tier web sites and Excel spreadsheets.

The requirements of front end development for sophisticated web applications I will agree is completely unnecessary bullsh*t. The ironic part of that however is that the cause much of it stems from the original goals of making it easier for mundanes to put together web sites. Regardless that's not the only game in town, and there are plenty of areas for the not so "elite" to develop for.

The biggest issue with these 30-somethings isn't what they "used to do" it's what they can do right here, right now. The "kids" get the jobs not because they have lots of experience, but because they cost less to employ making it financially reasonable to train them. Many 30-somethings expect high compensation but never bothered to keep themselves relevant and thus are uneconomic to train by prospective employers.

Good jobs are available to those that can offer themselves as good employees. You're not owed good job you merit one.

I do not call effective communication (language skills), logic and deductive reasoning, civics, history (theory and application, not fact memorization), etc. a matter for employers, trade schools or universities. I call them necessary, foundational skills and knowledge that should be developed in every child regardless of future vocation. I consider the abject failure of most public schools systems to do so criminal.

If accurate data can be obtained through once or twice yearly testing great. The huge problem I see though isn't so much the frequency but the simple fact that each little fiefdom has their own version of test. I fully believe that they do it on purpose so that I cannot compare my child's progress with other states, or god forbid, other countries. It is complete bullsh*t that appears to me to be meant to protect incompetent school systems. The means by how said school systems came to be incompetent is it's own matter and discussion. Right now however, it is really hard to hold anyone's feet to the fire because their little substantiating proof, only anecdote.

When bouncing orange balls and body slamming people to take possession of brown eggs stops taking precedence over math, science, history, civics, etc. then I'll be happy to consider whether courses intended to develop effective communication skills should be put on the block.

Actually, no that's not how it works in most places. There have been some efforts, but very few success in establishing "voucher" type programs whereby public money follows the child to wherever they attend. In most cases the money just doesn't get paid out since it can only go to the public school and the head count is one fewer. In nearly all states, the private school is funded just the same as a private college, by means of tuition and endowments.

I fail to see how corporations--for whom these kids will be working--are doing evil by grooming children for the jobs they have need to be filled. Is not one of the primary purposes of schooling to produce talent for the job market? A very common story told by American business is the lack of local talent to take on the jobs they need filled. At the same time people are complaining because they can't find jobs. The US educational system can't seem move away from their long established history of grooming kids for brain dead manufacturing jobs. All I see are the teachers unions running scared because their comfortable little fiefdoms are being shaken up by actors they weren't prepared to stymie.

The majority of that 30% of Americans will either be dead soon, or from a social-economic background in far greater need of being addressed than their lack of technological savvy.

This has nothing to do with the flammability of hydrogen nor the energy released through its combustion. At 10000 PSI even a minor structural weakness will rip the tank apart sending a shrapnel ladened shock wave ripping through anything near it. This isn't a 150 PSI air compressor tank we're talking about, you will be carrying the equivalent of nearly a kilo of TNT under your arse.