> the good kids give up with all the disruptions and interruptions in lessons, and start to turn in mediocre work <
Right. I taught for many years in an urban school district. The only bright spot was our Honors program. And it was merit-based. For example, to get into Honors Algebra II, you had to earn at least a B in Algebra I. (That Algebra I course did not have to be an Honors course.)
Well, about five years ago the Honors program was eliminated. It wasn’t diverse enough. So now you have Honors-eligible kids mixed in with bums who only show up for class once a week.
Scores are down. And of course the classroom teachers are blamed.
Exactamundo. You totally get what I'm saying, because our personal experiences were parallel. Mixing bad kids with good kids only has one outcome: more bad kids.
“And of course the classroom teachers are blamed.”
University education departments are pitiful. As one might expect, my children’s teachers are intellectual pygmies.
I should have kept a log of falsehoods my kids have been taught. My daughter recently brought home a handout asserting that English is a Romance language.
She is the only one in her science class who can actually utter the words “deoxyribonucleic acid” when asked what the acronym “DNA” stands for.
It is regrettable that I am not able to home school. I try to compensate both by supplementing the curriculum and contradicting great swaths of it.