This problem is widespread. There are hundreds of bochurim and girls out of yeshivos who are mainstream (not OTD). These children initially cry and beg, face continued rejections, and eventually settle in to despair. Many become rebellious, having not “dropped out”, but have been “pushed out”. Our yeshivos and schools are not part of a system that must answer to a higher authority. They are competitive. Each one sees itself as having a specific mission, and proving education to a specific child is not included in that mission. I have yet to meet the menahel that states that he feels a responsibility to insure that a specific talmid gets into a yeshiva. The typical is that the menahel addresses the issue as “not my problem – let the parents deal with it”. There is now a new field of work – placement professionals. These are askanim that dedicate much of their waking hours to pushing yeshivos to accept the talmidim that are nowhere. They hear the continuous rejections.
There are usually valid reasons given. My classes are full (or overfull), and there’s no more room. It is the middle of the zman. If another yeshiva won’t accept him, why should he become my problem? Etc. If the menahalim that say this had a vested interest in that child, there would already be space, and the calendar date would not matter. It is an old discussion that today’s mosdos hachinuch do not address each and every talmid as an individual, feeling like a surrogate parent with the vested interest that this particular talmid succeed.
Having addressed the severity of the problem, it is noted that there are those in the inner circles of chinuch that have begun to address this issue in many different ways. Change does not happen overnight, but there are yeshuos in the making. With Syatta Dishmaya, the efforts of many askanim will succeed in bringing chinuch closer to the potential of no child left behind.