The individuals are to blame, for sure, but so is the institution (at least) for failing so many students. Imagine a single teacher who fails 80% of his class

The individuals are to blame, for sure, but so is the institution (at least) for failing so many students. Imagine a single teacher who fails 80% of his class while most teachers fail only 5-10%. Perhaps the single teacher is just unlucky that 80% of his students have no "individual responsibility" - or maybe there are other issues at play. This is even more true, I think, when it is not a single teacher whose class is failing but a school's, and, I expect, a large part of that school system is failing. We should investigate and understand why and a satisfactory answer is not that one particular mother and child were derelict.