Failure

[rgraham666]

On another thread, several of us were talking about schools. Some people seemed to think that it would be better if our schools were like they once were and failed kids.

Now, I'm wondering, what would this accomplish, fettering a kid with the label 'failure'? Especially in a society like ours, that has a very low opinion of failure.

Try it. Say 'failure'. Doesn't an image of someone, well, much less than you pop into your head?

Try it this way, say 'I'm a failure'. Probably, you can't do it.

So, what would labeling a kid as a 'failure' accomplish?

Especially when there are so many reasons they didn't pass.

They could have any of many learning disabilities. Their home life could seriously suck. They may have incompetent parents, or the teacher may not be competent. The parents may be too poor to feed the kids properly. Here in Canada we have many immigrant kids from nations outside the Western tradition and whose English or French may be rudimentry. And on. And on.

So, if we fail a kid, without knowing why, and making no attempts to correct it, what will failing them accomplish?

I think the big problem is the wrong paradigm. Our schools use the industrial model. They are, in my opinion, factories that turn out producing-consuming economic entities, rather than people. Like all production facilities, there's a lot of raw material that doesn't fit on the assembly line.

That doesn't mean it doesn't fit anywhere. But that's the conclusion drawn by the school system that 'fails' people.

In the words of Robert Townsend, "This attempt to manufacture people works about as well as Dr. Frankensteins."

The gardening paradigm is better. Give the kids the right environment, nutrients and light, with a little judicious pruning, and we would be amazed at what they become.

Ain't gonna happen though. Too few people would be willing to cough up the taxes required for a public school system like this.

Start flaming, folks

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Personally, I've learned most of what I know from personal failures.

I hate failing. I especially hate failing at something twice. I do everything in my power to make sure that doesn't happen.

Failing at something doesn't mean you're a failure. It means you have to work harder or find something where your abilities are more applicable.

---dr.M.

 

[impressive]

Holding kids back in school GREATLY increases the chances that they'll drop out. However, that being said, it's most likely because they don't get the necessary remediation once they're "failed" -- and the gap continues to widen.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

I'm more or less against putting my taxes toward anything that falls short of the genuine education of a child. While I can appreciate the garden of development, I'd rather the instruction of education.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Why should we put money into our educational systems, when we can get them a scholarship to play football, let them play professionally and become millionares before the age of 30. Then we bitch that teachers make too much money and have the summer off.

 

[Guest]

I understand where you're coming from, rg; if not, let me know. I also recall how tragic it seemed (even to my young consciousness) when learning of a fellow classmate "failing". The word does connote tragedy at that age and time of life.

However, for the most part students aren't failed overnight. There are warning signs: teachers and parents communicate, the student is counseled, reports are produced, etc. Fairness to the other students also needs to be considered. How do you explain 'passing' to the student who managed to pass on her own by working her butt off? (I also recall my own small feelings of injustice when I saw students who cheated receive the same award as me after studying hard.)

Of course what I've stated only pertains to a good working system, something my own sons never knew the way I did.

Perdita

 

[fifty5]

On another thread, several of us were talking about schools. Some people seemed to think that it would be better if our schools were like they once were and failed kids.

I'm not quite sure I agree with that description (dunno whether it's yours or came from the other thread).

A system set up only to label some as failures is clearly a failure itself, but is that what schools used to do, or did they classify according to intellectual ability - pointing some towards unskilled work, others to skilled trades, yet others toward technical, or managerial work - and a few to academia.

And (I speak of the UK here) there were a range of 'progession' options: straight into the workforce; into apprenticeships; into part- or full-time vocational study in further and vocational higher education (colleges, polytechnics, etc.); or, for the academic few, to universities.

It's great to have aspirations, but insisting that the whole population fits 50/50 into only 2 categories - 'university entrants' and 'the other half' (so who are going to get labeled 'Failure' in that schema?) is the one that seems to me less like gardening...

It seems to me all too like Huxley's newspeak: limiting the possibility for analysis by redefining the language available. British universities and employers, while not contesting that A level results are justified outcomes, are complaining that the upward trend in grades doesn't allow them to pick out the most intellectually talented...

BUT

All that actually only deals with assessment, not with education.

I'm also not convinced that the latter is too well served these days either.

The reason I was content to stop being a teacher was that the detail in syllabi and assessment schemes prevented me from educating my students, but instead meant that I had to train them to pass the assessment.

The class I really remember with nostalgia was one where the students decided on their own outcome target. Some opted simply to understand what they wanted, others went for a certificate (CLAIT - Computer Literacy And Information Technology - for those who that menas anything) that specified particular skills, while a few went for the GCSE (which indicated an 'academic' understanding of the subject). When funding rules changed, the first group counted as failures, the next as lower-class, and only the few attracted the full funding to the College - which was the cash to pay my salary. Guess what: that class got axed (and ultimately, so did I).

Sorry to go on at length, but some issues actually are complicated - impossible to deal with in a 10-word sound-bite. Even the diatribe above is severely curtailed: there are improvements as well as 'dumbing down'.

Drawn from experience, but still only my opinion...

f6

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

"I am a failure"

Okay, that's done. Now what? Do I get a cookie?



Seriously though, it's interesting to see who a school is quick to label failures. Some of the smartest people I knew were people who regularly got Ds and a few Fs in classes. Why? Because they would ace the final and saw no reason for the superficiality.

Personally, I think the regular school system could learn a little from the college school system. A kid should be able to get an A from his work on the final alone regardless of any of his other work. Refusing to deal with busy work or showing a lack of respect to authority does not a dumb man make.

Okay, two cents done, back to the jazz.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by Lucifer_Carroll
"I am a failure"

Okay, that's done. Now what? Do I get a cookie?



Seriously though, it's interesting to see who a school is quick to label failures. Some of the smartest people I knew were people who regularly got Ds and a few Fs in classes. Why? Because they would ace the final and saw no reason for the superficiality.

Personally, I think the regular school system could learn a little from the college school system. A kid should be able to get an A from his work on the final alone regardless of any of his other work. Refusing to deal with busy work or showing a lack of respect to authority does not a dumb man make.

Okay, two cents done, back to the jazz.

Not to be argumentative, but it isn't a wise plan for public education. Even on (and maybe especially) a collegiate level.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Not to be argumentative, but it isn't a wise plan for public education. Even on (and maybe especially) a collegiate level.

Mm. I see where you come from and I can see your reasons (the reliance on procrastination, the enormous requirement of the person to be responsible to himself and himself only, the way it can limit ambition in the elite) but I do not agree. And I don't just say that because that's how I dealt with a couple of my entry-level college courses.

A classroom at its basic core is teaching competence in the subject. If the person can show competence without outside interference, it shows a personal strength. Even if it meant they were a lazy bum all throughout the rest of the year. This is my belief on it.

On another note, I cheer the same thing in a workplace, doddering, yet contiuous incompetence is worse in my opinion than lazy yet exceedingly competent. I like things to work and work well rather than someone to be "oh so attentive and trying hard". I realize that this opinion is in the minority and I also realize that my battery is dying, so see everyone most likely saturday.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by Lucifer_Carroll
Mm. I see where you come from and I can see your reasons (the reliance on procrastination, the enormous requirement of the person to be responsible to himself and himself only, the way it can limit ambition in the elite) but I do not agree. And I don't just say that because that's how I dealt with a couple of my entry-level college courses.

Oh, my stance hasn't much to do with those things. Its why I exluded private education from it (private education is a right, its not something that concerns me being at a public institution).

I got my degrees from a public institution. I work on my masters at a public institution. I teach in a public institution. I was of the opinion, all throughout my undergrad years that I was paying for the classes (even if scholarships did, they were mine) and my attendance was my business. If I wanted to only take the tests, I shouldn't be penalized for it.

It wasn't until I was on the other side of the educational fence that I learned better what was going on, a senior professor helped me understand that.

Around 75%, on average, of the costs of public education (on the collegiate level) rests on the state. Tuition and scholarships fund the rest. Ultimately, the tax payers are the ones that are paying the vast majority of the money for someone's education because that education is an investment in the future.

Someone may be entirely brilliant and fantastically gifted, but their class attendance and ability to show responsibility and dedication are things that justify the investment for the public. Those things are in place to protect the people that work hard to pay their taxes so that student can complete their education and benefit society. To shirk class and homework is to, effectively, waste their money.

Private college? They have their own rules. I can't speak intelligently about that. Their system, their justification.

Public universities and colleges? Even were I not part of the system, I wouldn't want a university to abolish homeworks and attendances and class participations and such... because I'm paying for that person's education, and I want to know that every precaution is being taken to make sure that people aren't wasting the money.

Take public high schools, next... so much higher a percentage is paid for by the people. Their rights, as well as the students' rights, are important. They're the ones footing the bill.

 

[oggbashan]

Selection at 11+ and other tests

Locally, we still have selection and grammar schools for those who 'pass' the Kent test at 11+.

Those who do not pass do not have the choice to go to a grammar school. The borderline cases might get to a grammar school through the labarinthine appeal process but if they do they are likely to find it difficult to keep up with the academic 'hot-house' atmosphere of the school. Those who develop later can transfer to a grammar school if that is more appropriate for them, or those who find the grammar school unsuitable can transfer to a High School although that is uncommon.

The system is accused of labelling the majority of children as 'failures'. Yet all children now take key stage assessments and they and their parents compare notes on scores. Every test labels some as successes and some as failures. It is in human nature to compete.

When my daughters were at infants' school they had a staged reading scheme progressing through various colours to silver and gold. Those who reached 'gold' before their peers celebrated it.

Children and parents compete for success not just in school work but in other fields. The fastest runner, the tallest boy or girl in the year, the champion marble shooter, the girl with the biggest breasts (under 11) - all were celebrated even if their 'academic' prowess didn't match. It is a question of finding what each child can excel at and praising that.

The problem with many educational systems is that they do not recognise achievements that do not fit the system, nor develop the talents the child while denigrating the failure in more normal subjects.

One of my young relations was written off as a failure at 10 because unlike his siblings he had no ability or aptitude in science and mathematics. He surprised his parents and school by winning an essay competition and eventually went on to Oxford and a First in English Literature. He is now an assistant professor but his mathematical ability is still lacking. The family teeters from financial crisis to financial crisis because he cannot manage money (and he married a wife with an equal lack of simple maths).

He is a success in academic terms but a failure as a economic unit - but neither he or his wife care about money. Contacting them is difficult because their phone line is often cut off because the bill wasn't paid, and their mobile phones have no credit either. They accept such things as normal. The rest of the family worry, tear their hair out at such evidence of 'irresponsibility', but are eventually beginning to recognise that he will never change and they will have to accept him as he is.

One of his sisters is a managing director of a successful company and on the board of several others. Her husband is equally prominent in commercial enterprises. His twin brother manages a budget of many millions a year. They have all offered the assistant professor help with his finances but he doesn't see that he has a problem.

Is he a failure? He (and his wife and children) are blissfully happy. Only the utilities who supply them get angry.

Og

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Schools are supposed to educate. A child who fails to grasp the remedial concepts from first grade, is unlikely to grasp concepts in second grade as they are supposedly built on those he learned in first grade.

A child who is held back may feel an added impetus to learn or he may feel like a failure. A child who is passed up to second grade will most likely fail there, as he/she isn't prepared for new concepts without a foundation.

I know a lot of kids who failed a grade. The majority of them went to summer school, and passed there, moving along with thier classmates to the next grade. Some, were diagnosed as LD or ADD and moved to special ed. It is, perhaps, just my personal experience that no kid who had to give up a summer in classes ever failed another grade that I recall.

When nobody fails, there is no incentive to learn, beyond a kid's innate desire to know and the encouragement given at home. You get kids in highschool who can't read & write, can't find Iraq in a map, have no grasp of history, sceince, or the humanities. This program does support higher education, as a HS diploma has become worthless. They require now that you have had some college at least to get a job on a road crew in my home state.

Passing kids who aren't learning because you don't want to stigmatize them as failures, sets them up to fail throughout their lives. You are turning out "educated" kids who are in fact ignorant, not stupid, just ignorant of what they should know. You are setting them adrift in a society that makes demands they cannot meet and insuring the next generation of fry cooks at McDonalds.

Private schools are springing up everywhere, and parents who can barely afford it are scrimping to send their kids to one. Because the private schools educate.

Graduating highschool without a grasp on anything isn't a guarentee you will fail, some people have inate talents, or have learned something by doing that they can make a go of it with. The vast majority of these kids, will not succeed, even on a small scale, but will flounder in a bussiness world that isn't concerned with your being stigmatized. If you can't do the job, you don't get hired or you get fired. Your boss isn't oncerned with your psycological well being, he is concerned with keeping his job.

-Colly

 

[Somme]

Personally, I've learned most of what I know from personal failures.

I hate failing. I especially hate failing at something twice. I do everything in my power to make sure that doesn't happen.

Failing at something doesn't mean you're a failure. It means you have to work harder or find something where your abilities are more applicable.

---dr.M.

Well put, Doc.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Around here it’s pretty much unheard of that someone is held back a grade. Almost all the classes are departmentalized, and so a student who fails a class simply has to take that class again or is advanced into a special remedial section. He isn’t held back while his peers move on to the next level.

The self-esteem movement has been dominant in our educational system her for probably the last 20-30 years. This model avoids making value judgments about a student’s work in an attempt to avoid discouraging him or giving him a bad self-image, and in my opinion it’s been a real failure. The functionally illiterate kids I now teach in college all came out of this system.

Kids aren’t stupid. They know when they’re being patronized and lied to, so you’re not doing them a favor by pretending that a drawing of Abrahamn Lincoln is just as good as a 12-page report on the causes of the American Civil War, a fiction promulgated by my son’s high school freshman history teacher. They know that they can’t spell because spelling was dropped from the curriculum for fear of inhibiting their natural creativity, and they know that they can’t write because no one ever taught them grammar for the same reason. So the big bloom in natural creativity and self-expression that self-esteem based eductaion was supposed to bring about has never happened. What you have instead is a bunch of kids who’ve been allowed to slide and who are entirely aware of the fact. Most of them actually resent it.

Instead of an education they got pop psychology, and I think that’s wrong.

---dr.M..

 

[minsue]

I have failed once in high school and countless times in life. If nothing else, the chance to fail teaches children that life goes on, you go on, you do it again and you get it right.

 

[SensualCealy]

OG,

Your story is very poignant (had to look that one up!) It baffles me beyond belief that schools do NOT provide basic skills to get through life.

Now I have heard lately in one local highschool here has a course called Family living, you can take cheque book balancing , grocery shopping etc, in their curriculum.

These are skills they will actually use, they never had that when I took all four levels of Home Economics. Sure I can cook a mean roast beef dinner with Yorkshire pudding, and bake a fluffy loaf of bread, but can I manage finances, I dont think I do a good job of it.

Now speaking of failing, it doesnt work, what the leaders in the education and political fields need to get together on is funding to support these kids that learn different than others.

I made it to university without being able to spell much better than a kid in gr 6. I do know how to use spell check, the dictionary, thesaurus etc ( had to look at the spine to see the spelling!) This baffles me, in my mom and dads day spelling was drilled into you, as well as grammar and penmenship.

The board we belong to focuses on literacy, it is a provincial mandate that all kids in gr 10 take a literacy test, if they dont pass they dont graduate until they can pass it. What does this prove other than the teachers didnt find their problems before grade 10!

I would think a literacy test done in grade 4 or 5 would give a child the time to get the help they need to improve before highschool levels. My daughter (11) can not spell worth her weight in gold. She had what they call resourse room help for half 1/3 of a year in gr 2. Nothing in gr 3- too many in the class needed help more than she did. In Gr 4 I went in the first day and got her help, that lasted half a year. In gr 5 she was put in a lower spelling group and a lower math group. Now in gr 6 things are looking up, Im not sure how she is doing, nothing comes home, nothing is said, except for a failing mark in science I had to sign.

Unless your child is ADD or ADHD or has some other learning disability that can be "Identified" you dont get the help, because they dont get the funding.

Education sucks no matter where you live!
Cealy

 

[Lovingly-Alexis]

I think that the reason schools don't "fail" kids anymore is to cover up their own misgivings in the way that they educate. For example:

My oldest daughter, 12, I had held back in 2nd grade. We had moved to a new school district which was much more advanced than the one she previously attended. She was very far behind in what they were teachig at the new school, so I held her back to give her the extra time needed to "catch up". Now, she has went to this school since the end of her first grade year. She has learned their system of doing things. In math she has learned a long, round about way of getting to the answer, which may be a good thing or may not. She has struggled with it at every turn. When I show her how I learned it she catches on much faster and is able to achieve the correct answer, however, she has to show her work and how she got to the answer, which does not jive when she uses the "old fashioned" method I showed her.

Anyway, after 5 years of learning the schools way of doing things, this year they have a new system. The kids who have struggled to learn the old one and who are finally just catching on are thrust back into struggles with their work trying to learn a new way of doing things..again.

My point, schools are not making learning easy for the kids. Teach them to read, write, add, and subtract. Teach them the things we learned without making it so complicated. Of course there are new things that must be learned in todays age, computers for example.

So, in my opinion, schools don't "fail" the kids because then that would say that the schools themselves are failing to educate them properly. What's wrong with the "old way", the way we learned things. Does it make us any less smart because of the way we learned it. I think not, so why keep changing things?


Alexis

 

[R. Richard]

A child who does not learn is a failure. There are many more politically corrent ways to state this, but the child remains a failure.

There are many reasons why a child fails to learn. Some of the reasons can be overcome, some cannot.

If a child is passed from grade to grade despite a failure to learn, there is a technical term used to describe the condition. The term is fraud.

Once a child leaves school, the lessons learned and not learned should have great influence on the child's place in the workd and the childs ability to earn a living. Turning out a failure and labeling it a success does not help the adult the child becomes.

To perhaps add a personal touch, I was a failure. I was required to sing in my early school years. I have no voice for song and no real desire to perhaps develop myself to the point where I can sing without people shuddering. Despite my failure, I have never found any place in my working world where my lack of ability to sing has ever impacted my chosen work in any way shape or form. I have also never found out why the school tried to force me to sing.

 

[oggbashan]

To perhaps add a personal touch, I was a failure. I was required to sing in my early school years. I have no voice for song and no real desire to perhaps develop myself to the point where I can sing without people shuddering. Despite my failure, I have never found any place in my working world where my lack of ability to sing has ever impacted my chosen work in any way shape or form. I have also never found out why the school tried to force me to sing.

I understand that. As a child I was a passable boy soprano. I sang in a church choir and was acceptable as part of the chorus but never as a soloist. My voice started to break at age 11 and switched between squeaks and booms from then to age 14.

On my Australian school's speech day the whole school had to sing 4 songs as the whole 1200 voices in four parts. I and about 3 others were picked out at rehearsal and told to mime. The other 3 were tone deaf. I was picked out because I had to sing two of the songs an octave below the bass line - and it noticed. I and the other 3 were embarrassed in front of the whole school.

Later in life I had my revenge. One of our friends was getting married and she wanted to hear her friends and relations sing the hymns - not a choir. I objected because I knew I would have to sign an octave lower. She insisted even after a half-volume demonstration. When we sung a hymn as she entered half the congregation turned round to look at where the thunderous noise was coming from and ignored the bride. Luckily she and her new husband had a sense of humour. I sang pp for the next hymns and let rip ff in the processional hymn after the bridal party had left the church. She heard me even when standing outside.

My wife took me to a Carol Concert at the all girls' school where she was a teacher. Their school choir was on a dais at one end of the hall. The rest of the students were on the main level. The staff and parents were at the other end of the hall on another dais. The music teacher standing at the front of the staff/parent area stopped the music halfway through the first carol 'Once in Royal David's City' complaining that she couldn't hear the men in the fathers and staff. I said to my wife 'Shall I?'. She replied 'Why not?'. The parents were NOT asked to sing again because the school choir had collapsed in hysterical laughter at the expression on the music teacher's face. The parents and staff finished the carol without the choir.

Now even my family hides when I start singing. I'm a loud musical failure.

Og

 

[Weird Harold]

On another thread, several of us were talking about schools. Some people seemed to think that it would be better if our schools were like they once were and failed kids.

Now, I'm wondering, what would this accomplish, fettering a kid with the label 'failure'? Especially in a society like ours, that has a very low opinion of failure.

I graduated from a small town school system in the Pacific Northwest of the USA in 1968.

I repeated the fifth grade and got an F for the first reporting period in the one class I needed to graduate my senior year.

I was never labeled nor treated as a "failure" by my teachers or peers.

There were children in my school years who were labeled "failures" -- actually called dummies and losers and other demaning things rather than literally labeled "failures" -- by both teachers and other students.

The labeling had nothing to do with being "held back" or "repeating a grade" but had to do with the fact that the people so treated were in fact "failures." No amount of coddling, alternative teaching methods, pop-psychology or anything else could make anything else of those people -- to the best of my knowledge, those that survived Vietnam are still losers and failures.

Making a student repeat a grade or course -- when appropriate -- isn't about "failure" it's about setting and meeting standards.

Repeating a grade or class is NOT always an appropriate solution to a student's failure to meet the goals and standards appropriate for their situation. When it IS apprpropriate, not using it sends the student and their peers a message that "results don't matter."

As a result of the spread of "Peer Promotion" throughout the educational system, we are now faced with an uneducated work force that believes goals and standards are meaningless -- a work force that doesn't think they need to accomplish anything to be rewarded.

Far too many people have grown up learning that not even effort is required, let alone results, is required for advancement in life.

The public school system was established because the Industrial Revolution required educated workers. It is sadly failing to meet even the modest literacy goals required of 19th century technology, let alone the higher standards required to survive in the "Information Age."

IMHO, I was better prepared to survive in and contribute to society as a high-school freshman (9th grade) than most of the recent high-school graduates I am acquainted with.

 

[cloudy]

I don't think that having to repeat a class, or even an entire year labels anyone as a failure.

A perfect example is my 15 year old son. He's extremely bright, has IQ tested very near the genius level, yet this year he is repeating the 9th grade.

We had plenty of warning that he wasn't doing well: notes, parent/teacher conferences, etc., but could not find the trigger that would make him get up off his ass, and do the work that was required. He could do it, he chose not to. So, he's repeating the entire year, and I'm glad he is.

He's learned that there are consequences to his actions, and that's important. He's also learned that there are some situations where no one can save your butt. And, that if you try to coast, and think you can get by on raw intelligence, that it will eventually catch up with you.

All that said, do I consider him a "failure"? Absolutely not.

I believe that in school kids should be held responsible. Yes, it's part of being a parent to push, cajole, and threaten to make sure that kids are doing what they are supposed to, but at the end, there is only so much a parent can do, and at 15 my son should have realized that he was causing his own problems. Now he does.

 

[R. Richard]

Re: Re: Failure

The labeling had nothing to do with being "held back" or "repeating a grade" but had to do with the fact that the people so treated were in fact "failures." No amount of coddling, alternative teaching methods, pop-psychology or anything else could make anything else of those people -- to the best of my knowledge, those that survived Vietnam are still losers and failures.

I would politely disagree in one of your cited reasons. Some tine ago I was assigned the job of teaching computer programming to Navy enlisted personnel. Most of them were high school dropouts, should have been drop outs and/or attitude cases.

I developed a teaching method that enabled me to successfully teach the unqualified students that they sent me. I taught some 300 students with only 2 failures (didn't do the work).

The thing the Navy could never figure out is why the attitude cases still had an attitude problem when they got back with the training that enabled them to move up to a better job.

 

[oggbashan]

Re: Re: Failure

...The public school system was established because the Industrial Revolution required educated workers. It is sadly failing to meet even the modest literacy goals required of 19th century technology, let alone the higher standards required to survive in the "Information Age."
...

My father (and mother) were educated under the terms of the 1870 Education Act. They learned spelling, grammar and their times tables by rote, with the whole class chanting 'the rules'. The children's books of the time made little concession to ability.

I have some examination questions on grammar dated 1921. This is one:
**
'Re-write the following, changing where possible the verbs from the active to the passive voice:-

a) The clerk made answer meet, "He has put down the mighty from their seat, and has exalted them of low degree."
b) He started from his seat, and gazed around but saw no living thing, and heard no sound.

Why is it not possible to change all the verbs in the same way?'
**

Og

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: Re: Re: Failure

The thing the Navy could never figure out is why the attitude cases still had an attitude problem when they got back with the training that enabled them to move up to a better job.

Which is essentially the point I was trying to make -- you can stuff a genuine loser full of knowledge on any given subject, but you can't make him anything but smarter loser.

Parents generally determine who is and isn't a "failure" long before they become students. Education and educational policy can modify the parents' influence to some extent, but it's always easier to counter-act a good influence than it is to counter-act a bad one.

Simply put, the current Eductional System is creating more "failures" than it is preventing with "peer promotion" and it's corollaries.