Spanish Teacher Reports Mass Failure in Compulsory Secondary Education

23 failures out of 30 on identical class exercises

A high school math teacher with a PhD in physics describes a classroom of 30 students in 3º ESO (compulsory secondary education) at a semi-public school. The group includes two students with curricular adaptations, two with active suicide protocols, two with dyslexia, two gifted students, and two with ADHD. Ten to twelve do not bring their notebooks. Silence must be requested every thirty seconds and lasts only ten. This account, shared on a current affairs forum, has reignited debate on discipline, academic standards, and the role of educational law.

The accompanying academic diagnosis is equally stark: 3º ESO students who can barely add without calculators, cannot handle fractions or equations, yet have passed mathematics in all previous years. In the final exam, antiestéticaturing the same exercises and numbers practiced in class, **23 out of 30** failed, according to the teacher. The lingering question is how this situation arose without earlier alarms being triggered.

No tools for enforcing discipline

The teacher claims he lacks any real sanctioning mechanism. Shouting buys only ten seconds. Negative incident reports are useless. Expulsion from class is described as an extreme measure discouraged by regulations and non-repeatable. Calling parents results in hearing that their child is a gem. Going to the head of studies or principal, even with collective staff complaints, yields the same answer: that is how it is. If conflict arises, administration and inspection tend to side with the student and family, according to his testimony.

This is the core of the discontent: the feeling that teachers bear responsibility without authority. Underlying this is an incentive problem. If a teacher fails students, they are accused of not ensuring learning; if they pass them, they are accused of giving away degrees. According to this testimony, the law pushes toward the latter: students eventually pass for one reason or another.

Debate on laws mandating promotion

The conversation quickly shifted to system design. One faction argues that since education is compulsory until age 16, failure should not exist: each failure would be school negligence requiring sanctions, with controls referred to inspection. In this logic, grade repetition becomes harassment. Another faction counters that evaluation without consequences is empty, and without consequences, nothing is learned except rote memorization.

In between lies the issue of student-teacher ratios and classroom diversity. Some note that such combinations of special needs occur daily in lower secondary levels, often requiring methodological adaptations for the whole class except three students. Many such cases end up diverted to curricular diversification or basic vocational training. Remaining in 3º ESO with accumulated failures from the start is described as irregular, something counseling services and families should have addressed earlier.

Lecture-based teaching and failure diagnosis

The teacher’s account also received a blunt response: lecture-based teaching is dead. It is argued that many teachers merely fill the blackboard with scribbles while muttering to themselves, without checking comprehension, caring only about silence. From this perspective, lectures should be replaced by games, chess, applied mathematics, or AI support for doubts.

The rebuttal is that methodology alone does not explain the disaster. A student unwilling to learn will not learn, whether via blackboard or chess. A recurring data point in the discussion is reading comprehension. One cited case of tutoring a 13 or 14-year-old describes a student who could only solve problems if someone else read them aloud two or three times; if he had to read it himself, he understood nothing. Sessions ended up consisting of reading sports news together and asking if the player mentioned was signed or loaned.

The end of the road: passing without knowing

The original testimony concludes with a single request: restore discipline and academic rigor in classrooms, prioritized over salary increases. There is also a warning about digital classrooms: if students are not forced to keep computers closed, the lesson is lost. The final reflection is that neither governments nor families are interested in this change, and thus we remain as we are.

The conversation reaches no consensus. Some see a problem of authority and effort culture; others, a problem of method and a system pushing for promotion; and a third group notes that compulsory education until 16 mixes those who want to study with those who do not, offering no real alternatives for early exit into productive paths. The starting data—23 failures out of 30 on an already-practiced exam—is what fuels the debate.