The risks for today's youth are many.  As I am entering the profession that I am, I feel like these risks are something that I should be fully aware of, and have a understanding in how to handle them.  As our population grows, and becomes larger, children are at risk of being "left behind" compared to others of their same age if they do not catch on quickly, and become acclimated to their environment, educationally and socially.  From an earlier age than ever, schools are starting to become more specialized in categorizing students in categories comparable to above average, average, and below average.  These students have their path in school chosen for them before they even have a chance to show any kind of improvement, or regression.  Kids who catch on quicker are streamlined into programs and classes that will hopefully advance them towards a college prep path.  Meanwhile, kids who start slower are put into a path that will hopefully lead them to finish high school, maybe with a few skills they can use in the real world.  As the population of America grows larger, schools are becoming filled over with students, and the pressure to do something different is being put to education officials.  They cannot turn students away.  They cannot just build newer schools overnight.  So the only logical thing is to determine from an early age who is who among students, separate them into streamlined paths based on their learning capability, and let the chips fall where they may.  There becomes a system where individual students are forgotten, as they are placed into the system and forgotten about.  The only way they are seen is by a test score on a piece of paper from a standardized test that everyone has taken.  This is a great risk to our students of present, and the future.  As educators, we must strive to be better than this.  Every child deserves a chance at a very good education and the situation that I have described here is not it.