When the bell rings around 1:40 p.m. thousands of students spill into streets. Notebooks and textbooks remain stored in lockers for the next day. Because of a desades-long practice of promoting failing students, some teens know they will advance to the next grade even if they don’t do the homework.

Meanwhile, teachers say they are faced with the daily dilemma of whether to move ahead in a lesson when often only five or ten students out of around 30 have done the homework assignment. Very few kids do homework, and those who do it, cheat. Said a ninth English teacher, It is hard to base a lesson on homework if the work isn’t being done.