Focus groups examined issues of school retention and achievement among male high school students in South Australia. The study was undertaken in light of declining high school graduation rates among boys, particularly in rural areas. Focus groups were conducted with 1,800 boys in years 9, 11, and 12; 60 school representatives were interviewed; and a questionnaire based on responses was administered to another 200 students. Findings indicate that adolescent males don't like school and feel that declining rates of achievement and retention are inevitable. Adults don't ask young people what they think and they certainly don't ask in a way that establishes trust and mutual respect. Adults don't listen, and they don't really want to know, particularly if substantial changes would be required on their part. Another strongly held, recurring theme was that school expects adult behavior but doesn't deliver an adult environment. Most boys didn't value school because it was boring, repetitive, and irrelevant. School doesn't offer what most boys want--courses that prepare them for a job. School pushes the rhetoric of fairness, justice, respect, flexibility, and celebration of difference but produces the opposite in practice. School pushes boys into a downward spiral of disaffection, resistance, resentment, anger, and retaliation that is hard to stop. There are many bad teachers who have too much power. Good teachers listen to, respect, trust, and value their students. That a good teacher changes everything was uniformly repeated. Implications for teacher education are discussed. An appendix presents the student questionnaire. A data table presents year 12 completion rates for Australian boys and girls in urban, rural, and remote areas, 1984-98. (TD)