perceptions of early childhood

I am always struck by the composition of parents at my daughter's dance class.  The majority of us are teachers at some level, going from elementary to college level teaching.  When I went to pick her up this evening one was grading 3rd grade papers and complaining about how they just aren't "performing", as she dilgently graded a stack of worksheets.  She began discussing what I think is a valid point, elementary should be more about the basic facts, children can't seem to add the simplest of things in their head and application seems mute. At the same time she was calling her class stupid and idiots as she was eagerly ready to hand out the same packet, again, to her students tomorrow.  As an adult, how many of us would just quickly fill in a bubble to be done?
 A dad waiting to also pick up his daughter began discussing a study done which I found both interesting and troubling.  He was mentioning how they did a study specific to math where some children wer not provided any math instruction until 6th grade and others were.  The results of this particular study showed that by the end of the year of 6th grade, those with no instruction were at the same grade level as those with.  Troubling, yes, and more troubling were the results or analyses.  The conclusion was that early childhood educators have so much to teach that they don't have a firm grasp on math and so they are unable to "teach" it.  I find this untrue, but math and science do seem to be components that teachers are wary of or often try to avoid.  My question is why? I know early childhood educators know and are capable of making the content meaningful within project work, what I am unsure of is whether we document and assess enough to make this clear.  Teachers need to start making visible what it is young children in the proper environment are capable of doing and yet early childhood continues to be driven by standardization.  Imagine if those schools which did engage in things like project work or similar, began to be more intentional in collecting data ) - wouldn't we see a shift in teaching and learning?  As I progress in my work, look to find more evidence of this.