Some students accumulated so many points early on that by the end of the term they knew they didn’t need to do more work and could still get an A. Others — often those who had to work or care for family members after school — would fail to turn in their homework and fall so far behind that they would just stop trying

The article is from Los Angeles and San Diego where they are more illegal and than citizen and he's an English teacher. Good luck getting non-native speakers to become miraculous English writers on their second year living in the States.

Perhaps a border fence should be built South of the border with a force patrolling it keeping down the number of illegals that can't speak or write English with limited skills to offer to the US, so we could focus on educating our children and not El Salvador's children? Perhaps those funds could be funneled to US citizens and legal immigrants to better our nation?