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<p>Again, I do not see why the posts and the lack of articulation is so surprising. This IS very common in America. The fact that this student happened to have a high ranking is also unsurprising as there are thousands and thousands of schools with similar statistics. </p>
<p>I mentioned California and its infamous Valley. Do we really think that this was a figment of the imagination of Hollywood? Travel slightly to the east of the coast, and you will find plenty of school districts (think San Bernardino, for instance) that will match the OP’s description to a tee. </p>
<p>Here on CC, we often have a romantic vision of what our education system is. We focus on the most selective colleges and debate (ad nauseam) the life and travails of the students who are reasonable candidates to those schools. The reality is that this “world” is only a fraction of the graduates (and dropouts) who were pushed through a K-12 system without the aspiration of getting into a “selective” school.</p>
<p>And we also hold the romantic vision that most teenagers can present a cogent argument and write with proper grammar. We seem to forget where they are educated, and by whom!</p>