While talking to a HS counsellor about problems my son was having with meeting college requirements because of how they scheduled classes (not enough English) the comment I got back was "most of our students don't go to college". Self-esteem is higher valued than accomplishment. In other classes, no homework was assigned-just stuff that was done in class-because they knew some of the kids wouldn't do work outside of school and we can't let the little dears fail.