2+2=5... duh!

Hello folks,

In today's news, the lawmakers in Washington state have voted to delay a requirement that students pass the math portion of Washington's WASL test in order to graduate from high school. You can read the article here

Now those of you outside Washington state may not be familiar with this test, basically folks in Washington wanted to establish some minimum standards required in order to graduate and they came up with the WASL test. Think of those "achievement tests" they used to give out in many schools (California achievement test where I grew up). You can read about the WASL and it's history here

Now I think the idea of forcing a student to have some minimum amount of knowledge before graduating is an excellent idea. I'm sure you can all remember the slackers in your school who barely showed up to school, didn't do any homework, didn't pay attention in class but managed to snag that diploma with a D+ average.... And after that they either:
a) Got pregnant and promptly applied for food stamps
b) Resigned themselves to working for "The Man" as a Subway sandwich artist (that's right, they're artists now)

Here's the problem though; the reason the lawmakers are suspending the math portion of the bill is because it turns out that in 2006 about 50% of students failed to pass all the sections of the WASL. Math and Science were the biggest problem areas (passing of the science section is currently not required)

There's one of two things going wrong here, neither make me very happy:
1) The test is actually WAY too difficult. Personally I doubt this, but for arguments sake let's say that's the case. Then re-write the test and be done with it.
2) The students are not learning enough. I'm pretty sure this is the real problem. Multiple studies confirm that America lags far behind other countries in terms of educational standards, especially in math and science.

People say that a High school diploma is pretty worthless these days, you really need a college degree; and they're right! How can a high school diploma mean anything when we're letting folks that can barely read and do simple math graduate?

If 50% of the kids fail to graduate they'll get a wake up call real quick. In this day an age nothing gets done unless there's an epidemic. Well half the kids failing their senior year would definitely draw attention. Curriculum's would be updated, kids would study more. And the value of a high school diploma would shoot up.

Coming up with standards and then going back on them because you're afraid of the consequences, NOT Tomland approved.