Maybe, hard to say. Speculating about evolution which didn't happen is really hard because evolution is an emergent process that doesn't happen for single traits in a vacuum.

What we can do is take a look at animals with high visual acuity who are otherwise unrelated. Birds, Cats, and (weirdly) Tarsiers are probably the acuity standouts in nature, and they are all predators. Prey with the best vision don't tend to have remarkable acuity, instead, they have improved field of view (goats, rabbits, etc). So it seems like "bad vision= you're lunch" doesn't really apply that well in examples we can see.

If this were the case, then all modern humans would have what you call "good eyesight". Predation hasn't been an issue for humans for only a few thousand years, which is not generally enough for a trait like bad eyesight to diffuse into society if it were previously under selective pressure.

For instance, modern (and honestly eve ancient) humans have no need for the ability to wiggle their ears, but most people have the muscle and can be taught to use it. Non-human ancestors used this muscle to detect predators more accurately.

Additionally: strong acuity distance vision isn't what helps spot predators. Hearing, motion sensitivity, and color vision are way more effective in this regard. In fact, I'd wager that the invention of the bow actually increased the visual acuity of the human population, since ability to use a bow and thrown spear at long ranges was a heavily favorable trait for tens of thousands of years, and, critically, during the ice age, when natural selection was particularly heavy.

It's not that deep. Society & government know school is valuable, and good school is better, but reform, especially national reform, is really difficult. Different regions think they want different things, as do different voters.

The easiest approach is to incrementally require some new standard, a new test, new collection of content, etc etc. The problem here, for me, is that I think the system needs LESS of most things and MORE subtlety and nuance for the the things which remain.

Problem is: most educators and policy makers were educated in the main stream. The ideas I have, which are more normal in other places or at other times, are just alien to them.

There isn't a national conspiracy to keep people as quiet tax paying cattle because there doesn't have to be. People like being quiet tax paying cattle. Education is about helping people produce more throughout their lives because a rising tide raises all ships.

Dude, the times table doesn't take 6 hours a day for 7 years to learn, it can be learned in a month tops. It takes most people who don't do arithmetic regularly a moment to retrieve that knowledge. What you're describing as "poor learning" of the times table is just the regular amount for most people.

Plus, you've gone and showed exactly why it doesn't matter that much: you did INCREDIBLY well compared to the average student and you claim that you can't even do the tasks taught in early education reliably as an adult. Clearly, the skills they were teaching you were not important, if you failed to learn them next to completely and are the picture of success.

Plus, the math skills are basically useless, because, at least in the US, math is taught without the logical framework of proofs, or the practical framework for the usefulness of an approximate model for a process or physics application.

The integration of math, physics, statistical modelling, chemistry etc in grade school is absolutely pathetic. There is absolutely no intuition taught about how math is the language of approximation and deduction. There is absolutely no practical intuition taught about what a model is and why models are used. Equations are just taught as gifts from some dead guy which you must use with random numbers to extract a grade.

School would probably lead to better societal outcomes if it were 4-5 hours of exercise, free play, crafts (ceramics, shop, cooking) and 2-3 hours classroom learning until the year before HS exams.

This could be followed by a year of exam prep, exams and placement, then high school as university prep.

People with basic skills like cooking, sewing, basic home maintenance, and hobbies like art, decoration, crafts are generally more efficient workers, save and invest more money, and have better respect for people doing services as a career.

As a person who did 9 AP exams, 200+ credits in university (120 required to grad), and most of a PhD (fingers crossed, a whole PhD in February), I'm not convinced that there's that much important content to learn at the school level. Most of elementary school and middle school was basically repetition of the same content and make-work assignments which required nothing beyond rote copying some text. High school was hardly better, though there certainly was more make-work...