That Class

I have that class this year.  You know the one.  The one that is full of students that are only taking your class because they needed a class to have a complete schedule.  The one that's full of students whose academic lives have been so full of red X's, Fs, and wrongness that they are incredibly defensive when they are corrected in any way.  The one that has students who are used to acting up and being disruptive in order to hide the fact that they struggle with learning.  It's the class that is full of students who have never really been taught how to learn, that learning is really a journey, not a one-shot all-or-nothing game where they lose before someone teaches them how to win.
This class is full of questions for me, now that they have gotten to know me better.  
Do students not fail because of the way you score?
No, students fail.  But mainly because they do not provide me with any evidence that they know anything. 
Why isn't this class as hard as my last science class?
I'd like to think it's because I teach right to my objectives, or I can statements.  What we practice in class is what students will have to do to demonstrate mastery on the test.  They are not used to this.
So you mean what we just did is what we'll have to do on the test?  Why are you giving the test away?
Because I don't believe in educational trickery.  A test shouldn't be a guessing game for students-they should have a clear picture of what mastery looks like before the test so they can hit the learning targets we set for them.
Why don't you collect and grade everything that we do?
Because most of what we do is to practice what mastery looks like.  Practice isn't scored, but they get feedback on how they did.  What gets scored are the formal progress checks after students get a chance to practice and work towards mastery first, with appropriate feedback.
Why don't you dye your hair a different color?
I have no idea where this question came from.  Well, I guess I do - my greys are beginning to show.
To me, these questions come from students who are the product of the factory-model school system that punishes students who don't learn in the ways that the school assembly line says that they should.  And, after being with these students (mostly seniors) for almost a semester, my question is this:  What are we really doing to students when school is something that's done to them, like school has been done to my students in this class?  
And why aren't we working harder to fix this?