Thirty-three low achieving regular class (RC) and 46 educable mentally retarded special class (SC) adolescents from a white, low-income, urban district were administered the learning potential measure and were interviewed to determine difference in attitude toward school and status as students. Results indicated that more RC than SC Ss saw a relationship between schooling and future lives, expected to finish high school and continue education and felt responsibility for failures in hypothetical locus of control question though SC Ss blamed selves for actual school failures; that Ss in both groups saw themselves as equal to or poorer students than their siblings, similar aged peers, friends and classmates; that more SC Ss saw themselves as better academically than friends and classmates; that SC Ss reported expending much effort in school work and regarding the work as their best; and that RC Ss expressed more lackadaisical attitudes toward school work. Also results showed that learning potential status within the SC sample was related to the academic variables, that more able learning potential SC Ss related school to future adult job situation, exhibited less discrepancy between academic aspirations and expectations, reported being given more responsible roles in hypothetical classroom situations, exhibited an internal locus of control in both success and failure situations, reported expending more effort in school work, and exhibited no differences in self-perception of school ability. Findings supported the hypothesis that the more able students by the learning potential criterion who are IQ-defined as mildly retarded are educationally but not mentally retarded. (Author)