Why are slow students allowed to fail?

Question

Too much is cared about the high flyer who will make it all the same

Answer 1

i don't know where you are referring to but in nyc the dumber you are the more likely you are to advance in the public school system...we are not allowed to hold back ANY kids who are deemed learning disabled no matter how poor their skills are or how little work they do...i have 8th graders who can't multiply by 3, don't know what a division sign is and think purple is an acceptable answer for "what is pi?"...

Answer 2

Could be also the case of the tortoise and the hair! The tortoise gets there in the end however slow he is.

Spot on Mr-Know-it-all.

My grandson fell victim to this ethos. Extremely bright and ahead of the game. An if it had'nt been for his parents he would have lost interest in learning at the age of eight as he was not mentally challanged in any shape or form.

Answer 3

Well because the low flyer is not worth the effort as they will fail because they have not the ability to successed.

But the people that can are usually nice people and are nice to care for. Which is vise versa for the retards

Answer 4

I don't know where you are.  Under the state educational system in England, the emphasis is on cramming the slower students through their exams.  The brighter ones are neglected.

Answer 5

I feel the need to speak up for the UK education system here. There is a government initiative called 'Every Child Matters', which does exactly as it states. Even prior to this, those of us who are teachers have always done everything possible to ensure that no child 'fails' - we try our best to help every child to succeed in a variety of ways.

Answer 6

Because, to get them to pass, you need to spend a lot of time and effort. Teachers can generally tell who is likely to pass a subject in the first week. They don't have time for everyone, and if you're not very good at a subject you're unlikely to take it further anyway, and so the extra effort is pointless.

Answer 7

I think you have answered your own question. I think it may be due to government targets

Answer 8

That really is a front loaded question. There are many reasons and NONE of them are good.

1. lack of Sped Teachers. This is one area where, if you go into it and can deal with it, you can write your own ticket. That being said, Sped teachers can be over worked majorly. All the paperwork would drive most people to the looney bin

2. NCLB. No Child is a deterrent no matter what people say. Numbers Vs Help.

3. Lack of Care. Now, what i mean here is that the TEACHER has to care about that student and WANT to help the student. NCLB tends to let those kids slip through with greater ease.

4. Parental Involvement. Let's get real. Most parents aren't as involved as they should be and its like trickle down economics.

Take this for instance.

Bobby is doing poorly, for whatever reason. Teacher sends home notes, and does emails to no avail. What is the teacher to think? I agree they should go the "extra step", but, most will do enough to cover their tracks.

5. lack of money. Sped doesnt' get the money. It takes alot of man hours to work a Sped Child.

Answer 9

HUH?  Slow students fail for a number of reasons - too many days absent from school (and slow learners can't just do the "make up work" if they've missed the lecture/class discussion/project work, etc.); refusal to do assignments (particularly homework - for some reason, students seem to have a black hole or "Bermuda Triangle" between their home, the bus, and the school - once I give them work to take home, I never see it again!); apathy in the classroom (unwillingness to participate, contribute to group work, have a discussion with the class or teacher); poor performance on tests and quizzes due to lack of study skills/habits.  We teachers don't just randomly sit down and look at the class list and say, "Okay. . . who's the slow learner that I'm gonna fail THIS semester?!"  Students have to take their responsibility as a learner - I TEACH; they LEARN.

Answer 10

"Allowed" to fail?  They have "failed" because they didn't meet necessary requirements to move on to the next grade.  A second round at that grade will hopefully allow them more time to attain the necessary skills.  In my area, the high school has more special education teachers than English and Science teachers combined, but none of the spec. ed. teachers work with gifted students.  Slow students are given so much assistance, and pushed to the next level, even though they have not mastered necessary skills.  They are given false praise, and passed on year after year.  If a teacher tries to hold them back, she is overridden by administrators.  I don't see how this is helping slow students.  They will graduate without the skills that a diploma implies.

Answer 11

Seriously?  The amount of money spent of "special education" and remedial efforts far exceeds the amount spent on gifted programs.  Gifted kids, far from being able to succeed on their own, are often abandoned by a school system more concerned with getting the "slow" kids to pass federally mandated exams than getting the smart kids interested in learning.  The smart kids have the capacity to do great things, but no, our country is far more concerned with teaching severely handicapped kids how to use a computer or do laundry.

Answer 12

They are allowed to fail because schools don't want to help the children who need help thru special ed.

There are MANY horror stories to prove this, they fight parents to no end, lie, cheat, violate FEDERAL laws to get out of helping these children.

They say they don't have enough money, but they get funds for each child who is in special ed, and what's more, they RETURN this money to the fed gov't because they don't use it!

So that sounds to me like they don't care, they don't want to be bothered helping kids who need extra help. If they did they wouldnt' be sending the money back.

Hmm, I thought they would keep it and make more football fields.

Answer 13

It's more to do with parental support than schools and the education system.  The teacher has 30 kids per lesson to look after, so often around 150 - 200 kids under their wing in secondary school.

Kids that want to learn will get help.  Teachers generally like the ones that try but struggle.  It's a challenge to try to get them up to speed.  The little sods that are a pain in the backside and spend their time disrupting lessons by mucking about, painting their nails, reading magazines, chatting to their mates etc generally come from families who couldn't give a toss.  You ring their parents up and say you need their help to get little Billy on track, and they say that little Billy does what he likes and they can't do anything about it.  No, you probably can't do anything about it because you've never disciplined Billy in his life, so why should he start to listen to anyone now?

My kid is not a 'high flyer' naturally, but he knows we expect him to put 100% effort into his work all the time, and he knows that we are there to help him and support him.  I have had compliments from class teachers and supply teachers about both my kids - their attitude to learning and their good manners.  It says a lot.  They'll never be the genius of the class, but they do try hard.

Answer 14

In Australia, it seems that more emphasis and resources are devoted to students with learning difficulties than the 'normal' kids.  I would say gifted kids get shafted the most because they are inadequately challenged by the middle-of-the-road teaching and learning experiences in many classrooms.

Except in some specially equipped schools, there is a tendency towards allowing gifted students to pretty much teach themselves.

Sad.  We don't support gifted people enough in the world - economics and poverty limits the potential of so many possibly great men and women of the future.  As long as we have a culture that allows this, OR allows 'slower' students to fail by insisting they follow the same course of education, our societies will have social problems due to unskilled and unmotivated people and our intellectual advancement as a species will be stunted.