First, you must understand that students = $. Period. Schools in my area go to a great deal of trouble to document on paper each and every day a student attends so that if the state department of education demands it they can present proof the student was there. This is because students = $.
So, now that we know that students = $, we can see that the overriding concern of every public school is to GET and KEEP as many students as humanly possible. Now, the simple fact is, many students do not deserve or need to be in school. One such story follows:
I had a student named Mr. Laflin. I noticed that Mr. Laflin did not ever do any of his work and did not seem to care about school at all. He was relatively good when I had him but other teachers told me he was a mortal terror, constantly doing absolutely everything he could to disrupt class and ruin the education of the other students. So I asked him one day, "Mr. Laflin, don't you care about your education? Don't you care about school at all?"
His response, verbatim: "I got two more years of this school sh*t and then I'm through. My dad lays stucco, I'm gonna lay stucco, and I don't need this school and math sh*t for that."
And you know what? He's right! He's 100% right. So because he does not care about school, because it does not matter one whit to him whether he succeeds or fails, school ceases to become about education for him and becomes a playpen. Mr. Laflin will proceed through the public education system, disrupting every single class he ever takes and bothering the students who are actually trying to succeed. He will be sent to the discipline office time and time and time and time and time again, but he doesn't care. It's a game to him, and having an almighty "administrator" tell him he's bad makes no more difference than a teacher telling him he's bad. He doesn't care. He doesn't want or need to be there.
But remember! Mr. Laflin = $. His school will lose between $5-6000 if he is expelled, so don't expect that to happen unless he actually physically tries to kill someone. Otherwise he will be returned to class each and every time to continue his disruption of other students' education.
I had another student named Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor is classified as emotionally-handicapped. He's a seventh-grader with the maturity level of a two year-old. He does nothing in class but try desperately to draw all attention to himself in any way he possibly can, be that screaming or running around the room or bothering the other students in the regular classes he's in.
Regular classes! What?!?! Well, you see, Mr. Taylor's mom "doesn't believe" her son is emotionally-handicapped, and so she refuses to allow him to be placed in emotionally-handicapped classes. And the school isn't going to expel him because? Can anyone tell me what Mr. Taylor =? I bet you can. And so Mr. Taylor will go on ruining every class he's in until he fails to graduate high school three or four years in a row. In that time I figure he'll probably impact the education of between 700 and 1000 students.
You see, the problem with public education is that it's a racket. The further away you get from actually having to teach, the more money you make! I've talked to plenty of teachers who are only teaching in order to someday become "administrators" making $70,000+ a year and essentially doing nothing but manipulating paperwork and attending "education seminars". Meanwhile a first year teacher responsible for teaching 180+ kids a day, responsible for educating the next generation of Americans, is making $21,000 a year.
Can it be fixed? Probably not. That would require making actions have consequences, for instance, the third time you're sent to the discipline office in a year you are expelled permanantly. Go stand on a street corner. Nobody cares anymore. But guess what? Students = $. And as we've all seen, public education is all about $. So don't expect this to ever, ever happen.
JS
Who's cynical, and realistic