High school teacher questions how to teach teenagers who can't start a sentence on their own: 'How will they survive if they graduate?'

Author image for Emmy Pratt
Emmy Pratt • Senior Editor
Oct 25, 2026 2:30 PM EDT

Teachers are between a rock and a hard place when half their class is multiple grade levels behind and shows no interest in catching up. 

It's no secret that many kids are getting left behind in the education system. When I was a kid, America was all about not leaving kids behind in this exact setting (when I was a kid, I thought that policy was about parents not leaving their kids behind at the grocery store), but now that it's been 20 years since that initiative, it seems like it might have been a mistake. I understand why teachers and parents don't want a 16-year-old still in a 5th-grade classroom, even if, educationally, that's where he belongs. But many kids have been promoted when they shouldn't have been, and it has hurt them in the long run.

Schools have a major incentive to pass students, even when they don't deserve to move on to the next grade. They don't want their school's graduation rate to be low. If only 60% of high school seniors graduate, the school looks bad and gets less state funding. Long gone are the days of the 19-year-old high school sophomores. If a kid doesn't complete the work required in 10th grade, he's passed along to 11th grade, just like his peers who did the work. 

When kids face no consequences for not doing their work, teachers have very little they can do to motivate them to come to class and complete it. Some kids are genuinely motivated and want good grades to get into college, but they're not the ones who make teachers' lives miserable. Kids who don't care whether they pass or fail need external motivation to get their work done if they're not getting it from their parents. If a kid actually thinks he'll be held back and unable to graduate with his friends, he might become more inclined to do C-grade work instead of F-grade work. 

I feel bad for teachers who are thrust into this system without any real way to fix it. They can't hold their students to a high standard because they get in trouble for giving the grades their students deserve. They are forced to hold their students' hands through everything, even if a student will be going to college in a couple of years. When a professor has 300 students in their lecture, they are not going to give every kid unique special treatment. 

Advertisement
  • 01
    High school students paying attention in a class sitting in their desks and writing notes
    via Getty Images (Unsplash+)

    Students are writing in a classroom.

    Stock photo unrelated.

  • 02

    I do not know how to teach kids this low

    Like the title says- I truly am at a loss as to how to teach kids this low. I am a high school teacher and more than sixty percent of the freshmen class this year has some sort of plan. Almost all of those 60% have "sentence
    via u/FoxyFeline69
  • 03
    starters" as a mandatory accommodation. They do not know how to write words and I have to stand over them and give them each letter. This is HIGH SCHOOL. Why are we allowing sentence starters instead of just teaching
    via u/FoxyFeline69
  • 04
    kids how to write a sentence???? How will they survive if they graduate? Instead of teaching kids resilience and stamina we are caving to their limited abilities instead of challenging them. I know
    via u/FoxyFeline69
  • 05
    educators have been waving the red flags for years... but my g, never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined how bad this is.
    via u/FoxyFeline69
  • 06
    irvmuller Sometimes I think all the supports just keep them in a loop of expecting and needing the supports. We never take the training wheels off and they don't know any other way to do it.
    via u/irvmuller
  • 07
    Darbley And taking them off in high school... the brain development windows have mostly shut. The "use it or lose it" policy of our brains... our schools and their parents are them over royally. These days, I simply teach at grade level so that not to screw over the kids who are where they should/need to be.
    via u/Darbley
  • 08
    irunfarther I teach everything at grade level. I follow legal requirements for accommodations, but I also stick to my pacing guide and reteach as a class when assessments show MOST of the class needs to relearn something. A few years ago, I got burnt out trying to teach kids who would show up once every 10 days. We post everything we do to our LMS. A student could literally do all the learning and work from home. The problem is that no one enforces that, and families are so used to teachers bend
    via u/irunfarther
  • 09
    Prestigious-Survey67 College professor here as well. I can tell you, there are no sentence starters in college. This semester, I had a student just stare at me and ask "what should I write." For every sentence. I had to say, "You have to come up with what to write. That is part of what I am assessing--your ability to think and express thoughts independently."
    via u/Prestigious-Survey67
  • 10
    It boggles my mind that high schools do not understand how they are absolutely hobbling students with absurd accommodations like these. Students believe they are doing writing at a high school level. If you are not creating all of your own writing, you are not doing writing at all. So, you don't get to pass a class that requires you to be able to do your own writing. I know this is not teachers' fault. The system is an exercise in absurdity.
    via u/Prestigious-Survey67
  • 11
    Mr_senor_ The sad part is the high schools -know- that it is hobbling them, but our hands are tied due to so many laws that "protect" the child, and generation of parents (and kids) that think failure is the end of learning, when in reality it's the start. You have to fall so you can learn to pick yourself back up.
    via u/Mr_senor_
  • 12
    Weekly Interview_936 Bingo. The laws, and the judges who actually entertain the most obviously bulls of arguments and lawsuits. If we had judges willing to just toss obviously vexatious and frivolous suits out with prejudices and impose actual penalties on the plaintiffs and lawyers ... well, actually, all of society would be better. Because this doesn't just plague schools, it's really the rot destroying society in general.
    via u/Weekly_Interview_936
  • 13
    No-Ebb-6266 Several people in my nursing class were on accomodations for exams. They had to be in a quiet room with no distractions and unlimited time. These students were expecting to be ER nurses, but sitting in a room with 15 people in it to take an exam blew their mind.
    via u/No-Ebb-6266
  • 14
    PiccoloAwkward465 Yeah the "sentence starters" thing did not exist for us in school, I had to look up what it meant.
    via u/PiccoloAwkward465
  • 15
    Dullcorgis I just googled and I'm still mystified. The concept makes sense and I know we all didn't just intuit ways to start a sentence that sound more geipping or polished. But how is this an accomodation? Does the teacher provide a fill in the blanks worksheet for a writing assignment?
    via u/Dullcorgis
  • 16
    Piccolo Awkward465 Yes I believe it's a Mad Libs type situation.
    via u/PiccoloAwkward465
  • 17
    Batmans 9th Ab College prof here. Had a freshman that bombed the first exam of the semester ask me as they were turning it it—if they could go ahead and schedule a retake because they have ADHD and the classroom was too distracting. And I'm like, "That's not how this works. I need accommodations in writing BEFORE you need them, not after." I get a letter a week later. Student asks again to retake the exam. "No. Accommodations aren't retroactive. It's your responsibility to get that taken care of
    via u/Batmans_9th_Ab
  • 18
    I also remind the student that it is their responsibility (and right) to set things up with the testing center if they want to take the exam in another location. They contact the testing center, then the center contacts me. Student tells me in writing and in person they'll take care of it before the second exam. Email never comes. At 3am the day of the exam, the student emails me and says that they forgot to tell the testing center but that they're already taking another exam there a few days la
    via u/Batmans_9th_Ab
  • 19
    Student dropped the class the next day because "the professor's teaching style is not conducive to my learning style and is creating unnecessary stress."
    via u/Batmans_9th_Ab
  • 20
    Winston WilmerBee I have ADHD, and this kind of chronic lateness/scatterbrained behavior is textbook. Managing it is a lot of interventions and coping skills. Which need to be taught and practiced. Eating curb in fifth grade was a painful lesson on getting my sh together in high school. All we're doing is pushing off hitting that wall until it's catastrophic instead of educational.
    via u/WinstonWilmerBee
  • 21
    Much_Big_7420 I'm not a teacher, but as a parent, I'm so glad someone is holding the line. I send my kid to a rigorous private school specifically because I want her to have academic standards and consequences. And the school is not even that "rigorous"—it's just the way schools used to be.
    via u/Much_Big_7420
  • 22
    exoriare It's negligence, and it is normalized by providing endless cop-outs to excuse it. Yeah, parenting is hard and a lot of work, and nobody's going to sing your praises for doing it right. Kids are vulnerable and often will have no idea their parents are being negligent.
    via u/exoriare
  • 23
    Jokkitch Most higher income public schools are still like this.
    via u/Jokkitch

    Although expectations are higher in affluent public schools, I still think grade inflation makes students appear to do better than they actually do. When I went to one of these high schools, they added 10 points to my GPA for my AP classes and 7 points for my Pre-AP classes. If I got an 85 in AP US History, my GPA would show a 95, and I'm not sure that's right. I guess it was a way to encourage students to take more challenging classes without worrying that they won't get into competitive colleges because of their lower GPAs, but I don't know if that's right. 

  • 24
    ComoSeaYeah I've worked sped in both title 1 charter and one of the best public districts in the country and omg the disparity in money and resources and support and overall expectations is unbelievable.
    via u/ComoSeaYeah
  • 25
    KahlanRahl The worst districts around me spend far more per student than the best. It's not necessarily a money thing. It's a family and support issue. Our district doesn't have to spend as much because the kids are getting reinforcement at home and start ahead of the curve instead of at the bottom.
    via u/KahlanRahl
  • 26
    GWindborn It's a destructive cycle. A lot of parents in the poor districts either didn't get a quality education themselves or are too burnt out from work to take an interest in their child's education.
    via u/GWindborn

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

sentences student students teaching teachers teacher educational gen z test high school education writing
Scroll Down For The Next Article