I had some trouble viewing data members that were longer than the select box, they would wrap down to a second line and overlap the next entry. I also could not use the mouse to scroll through the list and using the up and down arrows was sluggish. I am dealing with a very large list, but the original chosen seems to handle it pretty well.

I believe this is at best an unfair comparison between school and a "real world" environment. Out in the working world it is assumed that you are going into the work with the necessary knowledge to complete a task, this is not the case in education. We specifically develop a sandbox environment for kids to develop skills at school. At the end of the day students do not have the fear of losing a job to motivate them. We must instead encourage kids to keep going, even after they make mistakes. I stand firmly against people who believe tests are unfair, because at the end of the day children show they can stand on their own before moving on, but in the time that they are learning new material the focus must be on building them up and encouraging perseverance.