[Myrddin]

What good does it do to force a kid into a school where he or she will do poorly or flunk out?

Depending on the instructor, the result may be a single kid flunking our or a whole ROOMFUL of kids being slowed to the performance level of the poorest performer in the room. The latter consequence is more common in the K-12 schools. Colleges tend to prefere the "let 'em fail" mode.

[wiggen]

They run the big 3 like colleges. Stuy,Brooklyn Tech and Bx science.

[driftless2]

I remember more than twenty years ago having a conversation with a teacher who was the wife of one of my friends. She was a very nice person and devoted to her job. I brought up the subject of the habit that was being initiated of putting slow or troubled kids in regular classrooms....mainstreaming or some phrase like that.

I asked her what good would it do if the other children had their education disrupted by the troubled kids? She was adamant that the troubled or slow kids needed to feel wanted. I said, that's fine, but what about all the other children. She just repeated her mantra about not excluding the troubled kids. I gave up.