At the present time - “Critical thinking is not just for
advanced students. I have sometimes heard teachers and administrators suggest that critical thinking exercises make a good enrichment
activity for the best students, but struggling students should just be expected to understand and master more basic material. This argument
sells short the less advanced students and conflicts with what cognitive scientists know about thinking. Virtually everyone is capable of critical thinking and uses it all the time?and, as the conditional probabilities research demonstrated (see
p. 15), has been capable of doing so since they were very young. The difficulty lies not in thinking critically, but in recognizing when to do so, and in knowing enough to do so successfully.”

It is what the schools don’t do for the struggling students, and more so with the LD students and the students within the autism spectrum. It has really makes made mad over the years, and more so in assignments that have been brought home, expecting to answer the question, without the requirement of background knowledge. The most recent one, an English assignment with the background knowledge of WWII and battles and all the guts and ugliness. My child does have background knowledge on Hitler, and the horrible things he has done, but on actual battles, no. Good thing that they are allowed to pick the topic ahead of time, because it has been left up to me to provide the background knowledge, in a simple point form. When I heard about, its not history class. And my 17 year old said, that was one of the responses from the other classmates.  Might be fine, if students are taught history, but there is no such subject, and certainly not done as it was when I went to school.- history was a required course, and had to have three. 

Geography, history, social studies and of the three, only social studies have survived elementary school. My point is, the kids are not learning enough knowledge, general facts, background knowledge to execute their critical thinking skills, where they are ready to tackled high school.

Always amazed at quotes from educators - ” Keith Sawyer, an education professor at Washington University in St. Louis, says straight memorization of facts and principles is not good enough any more. He suggests that high-school grads need a deeper understanding of complex concepts and the ability to work with them creatively to generate new ideas, new products and new knowledge. One of the underlying themes of modern learning research, he says, is that students derive that deeper knowledge when they engage in activities similar to those with which professionals who work in a particular discipline are involved.”

One of the reasons why my child was struggling in school, was the lack of knowledge content. Modern learning research? He certainly not reading the experts in their fields. Thankfully, there was lots of material in the LD fields, on critically thinking and what can be done about it. The reading difficulties and other basic tasks, prevents them from using their strengths effectively,  that they have in spades - critical thinking skills.