Is any learning taking place in schools?

So, here I am half way around the world from my home, and it is fascinating to read two pieces on the same question, one in the US and the other in India.

They both tell us that there is something seriously wrong with education.

The paper here has a piece on education, in which the author--Suman Bhattacharjea--summarizes a recent study completed by her and two others:

Over 96 per cent of all children are now enrolled in school. Yet very often, we forget that children go to school in order to learn. Increasingly, empirical evidence suggests that enrolment in school does not automatically ensure learning....
This study indicates that neither higher educational qualifications nor more teacher training are associated with better student learning. What does matter is a teachers' ability to teach.

Aha, doesn't that sound familiar?  Like this argument of mine that in the US, we over-invest and overpay teachers with graduate degrees when there is no strong evidence that those graduate degrees contribute to higher student learning outcomes!

Meanwhile, from the US is this report:

Nearly half of America's public schools didn't meet federal achievement standards this year, marking the largest failure rate since the much-criticized No Child Left Behind Law took effect a decade ago, according to a national report released Thursday.

 Now, I am no fan of the NCLB Act. and for the manner in which tests become the focus.  But, we do need to constantly ask ourselves whether our students are learning, right?