Why Students Fail In High School

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If I told you that paying attention in class could limit the dropout rate, would you start? If the happiness of the world depended on exceeding standards, would you work harder in school? Statistics show that dropout rates and drug usage increase in high school every year. One main factor that causes this issue is the frequency of failed courses, which could be avoided by retention. Course retention, commonly used as ¨held back¨, is the act of repeating an academic year of school due to a student's lack of knowledge in multiple concepts. With this opportunity, students get a second chance at learning the standards to not only get promoted to the next grade level, but to also relate the standards to everyday life. Although many students may …show more content…
They are dropping out due to the consistent failures in their courses. The only way to get them on track is by giving them extra time to learn. Therefore, students who fail their classes should be retained and have to repeat the grade. This is necessary because it is an injustice to promote a student to a higher level course regardless of their mastery or failed performance on the concepts. In addition, passing a student when he/she is not performing according to the expectations of the classroom will lead to a prejudgment of encouragement to the student's thoughts. Furthermore, not getting retained will potentially lead to bullying and stress. Finally, students getting retained is a brilliant choice rather than proceeding to the next grade level without maintaining a general understanding of the basic …show more content…
When getting retained in the same grade level, the process gives students who are truly behind, developmentally, a chance to catch up (. During an interview with Mr. Dave Howland, principal of KIPP: Atlanta Collegiate High School, he was asked, ¨Do you find that for students who have repeated a grade/course have improved their success in other courses taken? How so?¨ Mr. Howland responded by stating, ¨Yes, frequently because if the student has failed their course (s), they have another chance to gain mastery and recover. A student will typically fail a course because they are not having enough time to learn every standard within the course.¨ This is evident that when students come to school, they do not understand some of the words that the teachers are using throughout the lesson. Also, especially in high school, some schools implement a semester-based (five months) curriculum structure, rather than elementary and middle schools having classes based on a time of a whole school year (ten months).
It is an injustice to promote a student to a higher level course regardless of their mastery or failed performance on the concepts. There could be one child in the room who exceeds all assignments in the class, but then have one child who does absolutely nothing or show little
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