75% of Freshmen class failing

[uhohstd]

So I was home for Christmas and one of the first things that my parents share with me is that at my old highschool over 75% of the Freshmen class were failing class. Refusing to turn in work, failing at tests, everything!

I went to a high school with ~2400 students in it, 646 in my own graduating class. We were very highly rated academically in the state of Michigan, that was almost 3 years ago. How did we go from being high ranked academically, to 75% of the Freshmen failing? Have any of you seen this in your own school systems? Does this reflect the upcoming generation?

Thoughts.

The parents of all the students who are failing were required to attend an assembly at the school. Everyone in the school district knows. The assembly was basically held to present the situation and hopefully influence some parents into action.

[Deleted]

Boring teachers are the bane of every student.

[GoldNSilence]

The decline of civilization has begun. People are being turned into cattle.

[Tierbook]

Well for my class in South Carolina are school had been renowned for being incredibly terrible in both academics and sports up until my freshman year. Once my class got there though our football team went to state twice and pretty much everyone in the top 50 had over a 4.0... if that's even any good. Now that i'm a senior though the Freshman class is terrible and have had more fights so far this year than my class had total.

[uhohstd]

Boring teachers are the bane of every student.

Blaming it on the teachers accomplishes nothing.
The teaching staff never changed yet they graduated several successful classes before this new Freshmen class came through.

[Tierbook]

The decline of civilization has begun. People are being turned into cattle.

Is this gonna turn out like Robo-cop where it turns out that Soylent Green was actually an optimistic look at the future...

[obdigore]

I'm curious how his parents know the grades of a freshman class. Are they teachers? Principals? On the school board?

[Spazzer]

The decline of civilization has begun. People are being turned into ZOMBIES.

Fixed. I have to agree nothing is worse than a boring lecture... and I did 5 years of college.

~Spazzer

[Deleted]

Just like driving tests in Sweden.

I haven't done much, still nothing else than A's in high school.

... Go Sweden!

[Kathandira]

Lazy kids. Take away their toys and force them to pay attention.

Let students stay back rather than going with the whole, no one left behind shit.

That was always my biggest fear, if I found out that I was in risk of failing, I'd freak out over the idea of repeating a year.

[Buxton McGraff]

I think the problem for me was when I was in middle school (7th - 8th) my teachers were engaging and fun. They had an interest in their students and it showed because they were hands on with us and made sure we knew what we were doing.

Then I moved on to High School and each teacher is dealing with a larger load, more classes and sometimes more students. So they don't have as much time to prepare fun activities or projects, and the majority of class time ends up being mindless lectures or note taking where the teacher sits at his desk grading hundreds of tests while flipping the notes to the next page.

High School teachers should have fewer classes per teacher and fewer students for class. Even if it ends up costing more money, it will be worth it in the end when our student's grades rise.

[Flame6]

Yea I'd like to see a source besides "my parents told me"

- - - Updated - - -

because my parents told me there was an evil fairy who sneaks into my room and steals my teeth.

[Tierbook]

High School teachers should have fewer classes per teacher and fewer students for class. Even if it ends up costing more money, it will be worth it in the end when our student's grades rise.

Normally this isn't possible.... most schools tend to be filled to the brim with kids and simply have no extra room for more teachers and classes. Certainly there is the choice to get some trailers but no one wants to deal with that and it's almost as bad as not having the extra classes at all

[dusketernal]

Boring teachers have nothing to do with it; if the student can't get past that for him or herself, it's the fault of the student, period. The issue is that we've shifted from placing the majority of the blame where it should be (the student) in favor of blaming teachers (who cannot force or otherwise make students do the work, want to learn, etc.). That's not to say there can't be bad teachers, mind you - the issue is that everything bad with a student, aside from behavior, is typically laid at the feet of the teachers. There's no look into the student's home life, the attitudes of the parents, ability of the student, discipline of the student, the income level of the family, and the like to acknowledge the multitudes of factors that go into student failure. The teacher is only a small part of the equation for the most part, and now that we have a culture that pushes "Everyone gets a gold star for simply being there!" we are reaping the "benefits" of that attitude. Sorry, but no matter how good the teacher is, every student is *not* capable of the same final level of achievement, any more than a cow can be taught to fly on its own. Teachers cannot magically make a bad home life go away. Teachers cannot control the sleep and nutrition patterns of their students. All of those things have been shown to have negative effects on education, but somehow the teacher is at fault? Hardly so.

[Kathandira]

I think the problem for me was when I was in middle school (7th - 8th) my teachers were engaging and fun. They had an interest in their students and it showed because they were hands on with us and made sure we knew what we were doing.

Then I moved on to High School and each teacher is dealing with a larger load, more classes and sometimes more students. So they don't have as much time to prepare fun activities or projects, and the majority of class time ends up being mindless lectures or note taking where the teacher sits at his desk grading hundreds of tests while flipping the notes to the next page.

High School teachers should have fewer classes per teacher and fewer students for class. Even if it ends up costing more money, it will be worth it in the end when our student's grades rise.

That would never work in New Jersey. Schools get a budget based on the states budget. If they were told that they need to have more teachers, with smaller classes, they would never do it. When the budget was screwed in NJ and our Governor said this is all we have to give, instead of trimming fat in the Administration, they threatened to fire teachers and cut programs for the students.

In my experience, the Teachers Union doesn't give a flying fuck about the students, they are only concerned with milking the state for money.

[endersblade]

Boring teachers are the bane of every student.

I think it's more that kids aren't being raised properly anymore. On top of that, the school curriculum has removed so much information from what is being taught. My sister graduated HS about 4 years ago. I was just off-handedly talking to her about the Berlin Wall, and she looked at me and said, "Berlin Wall?". I about hit the floor. So much for 'World' History.

There's also that 'No child left behind' fucking bullshit that a lot of schools follow. Just overall, schools aren't what they used to be, kids are getting more and more...well, feral, so it comes as no surprise to me, really.

When I was in HS, the whole four years, we had all of ONE person drop out, and that was because his father passed away and he needed to take over the farm. My HS had about 500 people in it, 69 of which was my class. My sister's HS had something like 5,000 students, her graduating class was about 900, and JUST from what she and my mom told me, people were dropping out of there like flies. One year had over 200 students drop out. Wtf? I mean, I know school sucks and all, but NOT completing it will cause far more issues down the road than the minor inconvenience of completing it will. But nobody teaches kids this anymore, they just don't understand the value of an education.

[PatB]

Well for my class in South Carolina are school had been renowned for being incredibly terrible in both academics and sports up until my freshman year. Once my class got there though our football team went to state twice and pretty much everyone in the top 50 had over a 4.0... if that's even any good. Now that i'm a senior though the Freshman class is terrible and have had more fights so far this year than my class had total.

I'm guessing you were not in that "top 50 with over a 4.0"

[Blood Fox]

Yea I'd like to see a source besides "my parents told me"

- - - Updated - - -

because my parents told me there was an evil fairy who sneaks into my room and steals my teeth.

it's not stealing if she give you cash monaaaayyy

[Aurimas]

Yea, there's no way 75% of kids are failing. Even in the slums the rate is not that bad. Someone made that number up. Either him or his parents or whomever they heard the story from. Someone had an agenda with those (fake) numbers.

If they weren't trying to exaggerate some point, most of you did well enough for them :P

[Krekko]

Yea I'd like to see a source besides "my parents told me"

- - - Updated - - -

because my parents told me there was an evil fairy who sneaks into my room and steals my teeth.

I'd have to agree with this....


I'd like to see some statistics on this.

I know there are schools like this, but many are inner city in very very very impoverished neighborhoods. These schools are essentially holding cells until a greater portion of their populous goes to prison.