<p>“That’s one possible reason (blame the kids), here’s another: Blame the schools. My sister (a public elementary school teacher) is not permitted to fail a student. So if Johnny can’t handle third grade, instead of being given an opportunity repeat it to catch up, he’s forced into fourth grade which he can’t handle either, etc., etc…”</p>
<p>But we are the schools. Schools are funded locally and with state aid. If parents see problems in their schools, they should contact the management hierarchy, principals, superintendents and school board members. Or perhaps run for school board.</p>
<p>Do state universities really run remedial classes or just kick them out? The state U that our son attends just kicks them out.</p>
<p>It’s not about “blame”. </p>
<p>While it may be convenient to use an example drawn from third grade - it doesn’t really address the issue. Any student planning to attend college and succeed in college must, at some point, take responsibility for their own education. Certainly, by the end of high school, the student in your example should have been able to learn to read, write, and do basic math - if they were planning to succeed in college.</p>
<p>reflectivemom, sorry, when you wrote “for those students who didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to learn the material the first time” I thought it sounded like blame.</p>
<p>Actually, I think it is about blame in the sense that if we’re going to fix a problem, we have to identify its causes.</p>
<p>The point of the matter is that those students who qualify for the honors programs are ones that the college wants. They also tend to be kids who have other choices. If they cannot get the amenities at their state school, these kids can more easily go elsewhere. I know several of such kids who did end up going to the state school because the privileges that the honors college program gave them made it comparable to the more expensive private schools they were also considering. Their issues with the state U were the larger class sizes, teaching assistants, scramble for signing up for classes, uncertainties with housing. When you eliminated those issues, there was not as big of a reason to spend the extra to go to the private colleges they were considering. On top of that some of these kids got a lot of merit money that made their college cost very little when you added that to the lower state tuition.</p>