Are schools any more than FACTories?

"This is why schools are nothing more than FACTories for job position replacement parts."Michael Martine 
 said in reply to  
An Operating System for the Mind.....  

This article is a very deep and engaging blog entry...encompasses 21stCentury Skills.....specifically, "the question isn't whether skills can be taught in isolation, but rather whether they must be taught in the context of some common base of knowledge and whether students ought to be tested on the basis of that knowledge."