[Nepeta]

In the late 1980s, I had a neighbor who taught high school science classes. One year she showed me textbooks, which were glorious, full color productions, nothing like the stodgy texts of my youth. (We were still using Latin textbooks from the 1930, which had been through multiple re-bindings over the last 3 decades.)

She was teaching what purported to be college prep level classes. Before a test, she would go over the material that was supposed to be fair game for testing; she said the outcome was predictable: there would be on B in the class, a handful of Cs, and the rest would get Ds and Fs. She practically handed out the answers, but unmotivated people are not going to deliver, no matter how slick the books and how the teacher spoon feeds the material.

Facilities do not make the student. My schools were all basic buildings with nothing particularly glitzy, nothing like the palaces I saw when I took short night courses in other locations.

If the student is unmotivated and the parents do not push, no one should be shocked at bare literacy at "graduation." At some point, well before junior high, one should understand that one is responsible for personal academic outcomes...

[dfwgator]

“You can lead a horse to water...”

[dr_lew]

She practically handed out the answers, but unmotivated people are not going to deliver, no matter how slick the books and how the teacher spoon feeds the material.

Reminds me of a Lombardi story. One of his players, a lineman I think, got named All Pro, much to his own surprise. In his own words, "I thought I stank."