Don't Tell the DOE about Ethiopia!

How do illiterate Ethiopian children receiving tablets and the United State's failing system of standardized testing relate?
The correlation between the two ideas: standardized testing doesn't work; the U.S. is falling far behind countries like Finland where learning is innovative and engaging; and the study where children in a remote Ethiopian village hacked Android on Motorola tablets in five months without help; suggest the need for change in the way we teach.  We know that there is no evidence for the benefits of standardized testing on learning.  We are also learning more about the capabilities of the brain when given tools and allowed to be responsible for one's own learning (Ethiopia).  There is much that could be discussed here, for example: What if teachers made learning goals more like mysteries to be solved as in the case with Ethiopia?  If standardized testing doesn't work, but given teachers freedom does (Finland), what should that mean for the classroom?  Is it too late for the U.S. to change it's ways or is the Department of Education too sold out on standardizing?  All of these things could be deeply explored.  My main concern is how others, specifically those currently in power in education, might make a correlation here.
How can we take what we saw happening in Ethiopia and apply it to the way we teach in the U.S.?
Along the lines of current DOE thinking, those in charge might say the solution is to replace teachers with Motorola tablets, giving each student one.  The tablets would be programmed to teach the students that information they need to know for their standardized tests.  "School," would become a free range facility where student could mill around as they liked, totally engrossed in their tablets, then ushered into rooms to take tests every so often.  There would also have to be a few adults present to handle misbehavior.  This is scary.  So let's be selective with who we tell about the research in Ethiopia and avoid correlating the study to the current failure of teaching to tests in the presence of those who work for the United States DOE.