What is wrong with modern education as suggested by the poem "Modern Ode to the Modern School," by John Erskine?

According to Erskine's poem, the primary
failure of the modern school system is that it fails to teach students anything beyond the
absolute minimum necessary in order for them to do what needs to be done. The school board has
determined that nothing "superfluous" should be taughtthat is, if somebody wants to be
a bricklayer, the school will teach them how to be a perfect bricklayer, but nothing in addition
to this. The problem, as Erskine sees it, is that this allows somebody to begin a career but not
to advance within this career.

When the bricklayer in question was made a
foreman, he found himself unable to do it, so he went back to school in search of a course which
would teach him. He was taught, once again, exactly what he needed in order to become a good
foremanbut "nothing more." This meant that every time the man advanced in his career,
he had to go back again and again for more education. If his original education had taught him
transferable life skills, Erskine suggests, there would have been no need for all this
subsequent schooling, as the man would have been taught initiative and the capacity to improve
himself on his own, without having to return over and over to be spoon-fed only the bare minimum
of new information by the school board.