The thing that really scares me isn't that children are being left behind, it's that enough children AREN'T being left behind. Some of the things I'm starting to see in my old high school and here in college are scaring the shit out of me. It seems to me that secondary education has two BIG problems.

1.) Schools are passing through students who should be failing.
2.) Students that should be just "passing" are getting inflated grades.

I fear that we've become so obsessed with making our youth feel good about themselves we're decreasing the quality of the education. I always hear from candidates that they want "more scientists and engineers", students proficient in math and science. They're going to get it, but what good are a ton of new engineers if THEY AREN'T QUALIFIED TO BE ENGINEERS? I had an opportunity to TA a course last semester, and it struck me that students just want to be "told" the answer to a question. They don't want to put the effort into finding the solution themselves, and they got the hell blown out of them on the exams when they had to take basic principles and apply them to a problem they hadn't seen before. Personally, I blame the internet. When I was in grade school, if I wanted to do a report, I had to go hunt through my shelf of Encyclopedias to get good information, and actually research. Now you can just go to Wikipedia.

When I went home to Wisconsin for Christmas, I opened up my local newspaper. First thought... "Jesus Christ... the entire middle school is on the B-honor roll or better!" What's worse, they've opened a "Renaissance" school for high schoolers. Students who can't hack it (not just those who have learning issues) in the standard high school are relegated to the Renaissance school, where they get to go though fluff classes and literally, get an "A" for the week if they show up every day. As a result, the graduation rate for the high school skyrockets, and the Renaissance students are still allowed to graduate with a standard diploma.

What I'm wondering is...why don't we start giving incentives to fail students? The more students who fail (within limit - it doesn't do any good to just let teachers fail everyone and get incentives), the more money the school gets. Make the "average" a "C" again, and schools that do have lots of students who need help get more money.

[/rant]

Jesus, that was long. Sorry, this subject just really pisses me off.