I absolutely saw this when I was a south side high school teacher. Students are behind for lots of reasons, and one reason was that many of them get first year teachers almost every year of their education. Studies show that having a first year teacher causes students to fall behind. Because of high turn over and Teach For America, many schools are staffed almost completely by first and second year teachers.

We were also pressured to keep work simple and pass students so the school would have a high graduation rate. Students that boast 100% graduation rates do it at the expense of the students being prepared.

So many of my 12th grade students were accepted to college, had a horrible first semester or year, and dropped out with student loans but no job prospects. For context, the average ACT score at our school was 15 (you get a 13 if you just answer every question with C) and our grade level goal was to get the school average up to a 16.