[Radical Pi]

Coming from an above-average math student in HS (whatever that's worth in todays standards...), I think the root of the problem is in the student's willingness to work for their grades.

A few days ago we were working on a worksheet about numerical patterns (Algebra 2). I finished the whole page in 3 minutes while the rest of the class was still on question #2 (Guess why it's so easy - programming for FRC), so the teacher told me to help the 2 students behind me. As soon as I turned around, they asked me "Can I just copy down your answers?". After saying no many times, they finally started actually working on the problems. Still, they would continually try to just copy my answers, even trying to trick me into giving them ("Hey can I have your paper to check my answers to #1-4"), to the point where they were working harder on cheating than on actually thinking about the questions. Think about it: Students in an honors class trying harder to cheat than to figure out the answers themselves. I don't even know why it deserves to be called an honors class.

There also is a problem in the way we see teaching the students. Our district just passed a new rule that says teachers cannot fail students because they don't do homework (basically, if their homework grades put them below the fail threshold, then they still pass the class). We got that rule because too many students have been failing courses for not doing their homework...why don't they come up with some other way to get students to do homework? Or there are other problems like when a student who can't handle an honors class and refuses for come in on their free time for extra help is told by the teacher that the student needs to go to a regents level, the parent then calls and blames the teacher for not helping the student enough and forces the student to stay in honors class (I've seen it happen). What about sports? The rules in our district say that a student can have all their grades be C- (possibly even D+) and still be allowed to participate freely in sports. Why are the expectations so low?

My point is, why does the school and district do so little to provide incentives for the students to do well in their classes and even occasionally provide free passes to students who don't deserve to be in the class at all?