I assume that the students who couldn’t read well and couldn’t do math and who saw they were failing or near-failing every class, made the reasonable assumption that they wouldn’t graduate and stopped going to school. These dropouts reflected on the graduation rate and therefore reflected on the Noble Teachers. The Teachers’ Union obviously pushed for this to simply get the stated graduation rates up.

Teachers will now be allowed by law to inform these underperforming students that failing grades and lack of any demonstrable ability won’t keep them from getting that diploma provided they merely show up on a (semi) regular basis. Attendance alone will guarantee “success”, aka graduation.

One way I consider current events is that the Democrat-Tech-Woke complex is getting rid of all the rules so they can Do Whatever on the spot as their will to power demands.

Meanwhile the rest of us are on Double Secret Probation.

Wow – deja vu all over again.
When I was in HS, my mother had begun teaching in my old junior high.
One day, she told me she had been asked for her opinion on switching from an objective grading system (ye olde test scores) to a subjective one (teacher’s impression of students’ overall performance). I told her I was adamantly in favor of the former, because you never knew when a teacher would just not like you enough to give you credit for your actual achievements.
I don’t know if I was the deciding vote, but I think she was pretty much on the same page already (not only has this apple not fallen far from the tree, some people think we were cloned).

On another occasion, she asked my opinion of a former math teacher who was being criticized by some of the current students as too harsh. I said that he had been firm but fair, and they should quit whining and just learn the formulas.

The decline in standards started that far back (1960s).

And I have LAND FOR SALE!!
Cheap!!

Now, I WILL admit, it’s on a 3y flood plain…. but that’s ok, friends of mask safety, since I’ve put a chain link fence around it, you can rest assured, no floods here!!

Unreal

I’m not taking issue with the above, but I would note that it also makes it easier for those in position of power to accept/reject applications for college and jobs according to their own whims, prejudices and political strategies.

Those rejected will have little recourse for formal complaint. The powerful become more powerful.

I recall a study which showed a white kid with 4H membership in his college application stood little chance at an Ivy no matter what his test scores were.

“Is it Glenn Reynolds who says the world makes more sense when you imagine any institution is run by a cabal of its enemies?”

Insty was quoting Robert Conquest:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Conquest#Three_Laws_of_Politics