One of my college profs told our class once that he had read several studies about education and learning processes. He said not only that sitting in the front 2 rows generally results in better grades, but that the people who sit in the BACK RIGHT hand corner (if you're the teacher facing the class, your right) are most likely to fail. (Of course I was sitting right there that day!
)
And it's eerily true... I thought back through some of my high school and even jr. high classes, and those kids were ALWAYS the ones who seemed to get straight D's. What bothers me about this is that usually in jr. & sr. high school, seating is alphabetical. So just because of your name you can get the failing seats!
Don't get me wrong, the student has the responsibility to pay attention, etc. but it is pretty strange!