I'm speaking of disciplinary action that is home/family based and can just be rooted in the expectation of high effort. When this parenting is established young, the kid knows no other way. They know they have to participate. They generally don't want to disappoint their family. Everything is setup so disciplinary action should seldom need to occur and instead the opportunities for academic intervention are truly identified in a timely fashion and can receive a targeted solution (tutoring, different teaching style, etc).

Some families will decide to push harder, A's and AP classes are required, full effort in academics at all times. Some families will decide every assignment has to be completed and A's and B's with maybe an occasional C in a very hard class is acceptable and the student is left some bandwidth for social/non-academics. Some families take a simple pass/fail, as long as the kid finds a way to pass then they are good. So on...

The throughline is the parents are involved and monitoring the whole school year. Is homework being completed, how are your grades, talk to teachers when needed, etc. I feel this basic parenting is no longer common, parents want to blame the education system without taking any responsibility.

Sure we can incrementally improve education along the way, but we have to have a good faith expectation and base line of participation as a foundation or nothing will work.

Kids lose their curiosity because they witness their peers goofing around and not taking it serious. So if my friend's parents don't care and he's allowed to goof around instead of putting in the work, then I get a sense of FOMO or feel like a sucker for putting in the work. So everything devolves to the lowest common denominator. There's a lot more group dynamics and kids obviously don't know what is best for them, so adults really need to tell them what is expected. It's amazing how quickly a class elevates when you remove 1-2 distractions and likewise when the whole class is engaged and there is no distraction to begin with, it's ideal.