The most mysterious ones

I have an entire classroom of students who are four years behind mathematically according to benchmark tests. Only one student is testing above that four-year deficit. In many cases, those dismal test results seem explicable. When I work with most students in this class, it’s clear that many struggle with math. New concepts don’t come easily to them and the those concepts don’t stick without a great deal of repetition. In this time of rapidly moving, scripted curricula, that repetition can be extremely difficult or even impossible to manage.

That said, the real mystery has to be that small subset of students who catch on relatively quickly, those students who don’t need a great deal of instruction and repetition to take off running with the new material. What happened to these students? How did they get so far behind?

Eduhonesty: I am honestly mystified.