Students segregated at lunch based on grades, attendance
Interesting. I'm of two minds about this. On one hand I am pretty sure that this will not work for all students. It's essentially an "embarrass" them into submission type of program, which quite frankly never worked for me personally. On the other hand it probably would work for other students. I've never been fond of "one size fits all" type of mantra which this essentially is. I would prefer a more diverse education program.
Sounds like a completely terrible idea, to me.
As someone who wound up in a "high potential under-achieving students" seminar in high school, I'll tell you why a lot of kids don't have great grades.
The schooling model as it stands is not working for them. There is no amount of shaming that will change that.
For a lot of students -- myself included -- it will simply make them dig in their heels. For students like me, the problem was feeling like school is not actually a learning environment. Just a place where they try to break you in to be mistreated by your boss. I was a hands-on learner, and nothing we did ever engaged us in the process. Nothing we did ever encouraged conversation. Nothing I thought seemed to be of any value to 90% of my teachers (and surprise, surprise, I had top grades in classes with teachers who DID value that). I didn't have amazing grades because I didn't
care about having amazing grades. I knew it wouldn't have been hard for me. Hell, in college, I got A's in classes where I never even took the textbook out of its packaging. But in high school, I was not swayed by strong-arming. I was repelled.
For other students, they want to have good grades, but are not having their needs met. I had a friend who was fairly bright overall, but had a number-based learning disability. She got put in Special Ed for math, but she was in the same class as severe autistics, people with profound intellectual disability, and sufferers of psychotic disorders. Their needs are all completely different. How is she supposed to get HER needs met in a class with so many different needs, none of which are being catered to?
Our school system needs to move away from a cattle-call style attempt to simply break students into fitting on very specific, very anti-learning mold. It doesn't work for a lot of them. Shaming will not fix that.