What will they do?

I've been pondering this question for quite some time now. What will they do? I'm looking at a classroom full of, say, 10th graders. There are approximately 30 registered for the class. 20-25 attend regularly. Of those, being generous, 25, none of them are exceptional. This is not an advanced level class, but neither is it a remedial class. Things were going swimmingly with these students when we were doing creative poetry and in class readings, but suddenly the curriculum demanded that we enter into literature. We had three books we needed to read. The majority of the students stopped working. It was, and is interesting to me that these students, of average intelligence, refuse to read. They will not read a book either in class or on their own time. The last novel we just concluded was To Kill a Mockingbird. If a person polled the class for an honest number, I believe that maybe,(again, I'm being generous) 1/3 of the students actually read the book! The ironic part of this is that those same students. The students who do not read, rarely participate in class, much less complete in class assignments, are the most confrontational about their grades. They expect to be passing. They will look me straight in the eye and tell me that "I'd better be passing." with a glint of a threat in their voices. I'm appalled. I know that I was no star pupil when I was in the 10th grade, but I know that if I didn't read the material, especially if that was the crux of the entire curriculum, that I didn't have a chance. There was no doubt that I wouldn't pass. These kids are clueless. What do they expect will be happening to them in the future. They are going to be facing huge demands, and how are they going to stand up to these demands? Are they going to make veiled threats to their professors, employers, social workers, parole officers? Are they going to go to work when they have nothing else going on in their most exciting lives? Are they planning to work for something, anything? Several of these 10th graders lack of initiative to read was so striking that I did a quick reading assessment. I found that several of my students had a 6th grade reading level. 6th grade in the 10th grade! Big problem folks. The low level readers are the most disruptive. The readers who are challenged by Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird or Julius Caesar, are the most easliy distracted by these disruptors, and those to whom the material is not challenging are frustrated and feel out of place. Why mainstreaming? Why can't we track our kids? How are we supposed to educate if we have 6th grade readers in a 10th grade class? I have so many angry students right now because they are not passing. When I tell them that they are not passing because they never read the book, I might as well be talking into a vacuum. All they see is that someone else who they don't consider any more intelligent than themselves is passing, so it must be my fault. I'm disgusted. Right now I see the labor force, the welfare rolls and the drug trafficing businesses booming with prospective employees, but there is no one left to doctor my babies, protect my community or teach my children. I'm very concerned.