[wintertime]

I personally think they should group kids by ability and not age.
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But...as you said,"Kids can be vicious."

In the "Lord of the Flies" environment of factory-like schools, younger children would be defenseless in classes with older students.

The fundamental problem with all schools is that they are unnatural. That we institutionalize our children in these factory-like settings would be a wonderment to 150,000 years of our ancestors experience. If they could see what we do to children they would be appalled and befuddled that we would do this to children.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Thank you for saying that!

We put our children into these awful environments that if it weren't state mandated, it could be considered contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Kids need much more adult interaction and modeling than they get in these huge schools. They don't need to be in a place where they are put into an adolescent pressure cooker with no real discipline, where who is hot today is much more important than anything the teacher drones on about, where they are molded into PC correct structures, where they are force fed a set of values no matter what the values of their parents have.

And then we wonder why the kids are the way they are.

[SoftballMominVA]

You say that, yet you just referred to a picture of mixed age kids and said that could be a private school with vouchers/tax credits. Implying that mixed ability grouping is a great idea! You are very good at talking up both sides of an issue - whichever one fits the argument o' the morning.

[Melchior]

By definition half of all children are below average intelligence. Yet, an inordinate amount of time is wasted making them feel happy. (Hollywood is truly responsible for some of this, viz., the incredible fairy tale, "Legally Blonde" flick). In the old days it was "its a tough world, get used to it buttercup"; now its, "can't we all get along?"