Where we have a main problem is that our city school system has this magical idea that all students will transition to college, where they will not only gain salvation into heaven, but be erudite sophisticated and have many career opportunities. In reality a large percentage of our student population flounders aimlessly in school and leave with no job skills. It seems obvious that the reason they city keeps the self selecting high schools, like Poly & City, is to provide places for the elite to send their kids so they do not have to be in schools with the general population. If our schools were to start the career planning and exploration & skills programs, in middle school, so when the kids enter high school ready to follow a career path (like they do in Germany) AND if the high school had a strong job placement department, all this would provide students with a focus and clear cause & effect example that being successful in school leads to a living wage job. Of course this means our high schools need to be set up for jobs skills and not a generic college prep curriculum. Yes, the sacred college programs should be offered, but not as a default for all. Just because one secures job focused training does not eliminate college possibility later. Community colleges have been set up, for decades, to provide this transition.

Additionally our middle school kids need more focus on being citizens and socialized as their are changing mentally and physically. This was to be the main goal of the middle school philosophy, not to be a mini high school, not to be and extension of elementary school, which is how the city structures its current schools for the middle aged students. Peer influence become dominate in these middle years. Parent influences lessens. This has all be realized decades ago, but the desire by the middle & upper class parents for their child to be ready for the elite college has kept the middle school ideas and curriculum from being adopted.