Whatever happened to the concept of learning?

I realized something that startled me this while reading this story which claims that students, parents and teachers are upset over the current school schedule in which the end of the fall semester does not coincide with the Christmas vacation break. Here's what they are upset about: Students are taught something, have three weeks off, then return to class and are tested on what they were taught three weeks earlier. The story actually quotes one student as saying: "To retain all this information and then use it is a lot to ask of some teenagers."

What? Not only are we not expecting our children to learn anything in school, we think it's even too much to ask them to remember a lesson for three weeks after it's taught??? Here's another quote from the story attributed to Plano School Board member Mary Beth King: "They've (students) essentially been away from the material for three weeks, and it's a hard thing to come back and be tested on the contents of what they studied three weeks ago." That's from a school board member!!!!

I find this a startling admission. How can we complain about public schools when we are encouraging a system in which students not only are not required to learn a subject, they are not even required to remember it for longer than a fortnight?