I have cousins who in fact have been tracked OUT of college prep HS’s and into vocational programs due to learning challenges-- the kind which are easily dealt with in the US. A genius level math student by middle school (who had reading difficulties- here he’d have been in a “twice exceptional” program and mainstreamed by 9th grade) who is a bookkeeper. A bright and ambitious student who is finishing a welding program (not that there is anything wrong with that) who scored off the charts on a standard IQ test but who has ADD. And his younger brother who will likely end up in a pharm tech certification program (also very bright, also with ADD) because he didn’t score high enough to get into the prestigious HS which tracks to university which tracks to pharmaceutical research which is his interest.
Don’t tell me that kids aren’t tracked away from university. These are upper middle class kids growing up in families which value education (many PhD’s, university professors, engineers) who just can’t pass the hurdle (whether in 8th grade, 9th, or in one country, 12th) which gets them access to a college education.
Does America want every kid with an LD or ADD screened out of college? And these are kids who have NO difficulty passing algebra 2- the “family” disability appears to be language based, the kind of issue which any solid special Ed teacher from Bank Street or NYU could deal with in two years. (which in fact is what has happened with the other family members who live in the US. Intervention in the early years and then mainstreamed, reading on grade level or above, by middle school).