The issue here is that in secondary school all three of these necessary and admirable fundamentals to ANYthing learned are rather rigidly and narrowly hammered into a select few disciplines on a schedule and assessment regimen that profoundly elevates and advances an already advantaged group.

In the classroom, we educators are inclined (or forced) to lighten expectations for many students not because we're bad at the job but because the threat and harm of failure is so significant, we lack the tools necessary for our students to reach rigorous mastery in the time we have (both in and out of school), and the schedule is so unrelenting and unforgiving that there's no other avenue except advancement. Especially when the credential of a HS diploma has so much weight and the path out of poverty is so powerfully defined by a college degree. One pressure ends up far outweighing the other and everyone suffers.