I don't know where you grow up but in most of the developed world kids mock kids for putting effort into study; peers provide social pressure against learning, not towards it.
I don't know where you grow up but in most of the developed world kids mock kids for putting effort into study; peers provide social pressure against learning, not towards it.
That depends on peer quality. And it's why so much of education outcomes depends on peer quality.
It's also why there's a considerable opposition to tracking.
If you evaluate academic ability, inevitably, the students who want to learn things are going to be closer to the top, and the ones who don't want to learn things are going to be closer to the bottom.
Now, group students up by ability aggressively: the "top end classes" are going to devour the school program - while the "bottom end classes" would devolve into a pandemonium.
Naturally, the parents of the bottom end students would want there to be zero tracking, so that the average "peer quality" pulls their children up, and the parents of the top end students want there to be the most aggressive tracking possible, so that the average "peer quality" doesn't drag their children down.
A big part of what the rich parents pay for when they send their kids into those expensive private schools is access to better "peer quality". "If a kid's parents are rich" isn't a perfect proxy for "if the kid wants to be learning things", but it outperforms the average. And if a private school is actually willing to expel the most disruptive students, then it's going to tip the scales even further.