Back around 2012...colleges around Arlington, VA area,
both two-year and four-year operations began to require a basic high school math course-at-the-college level....which meant zero credit but it was to raise you to the level expected in college. There was a bit of talk at the time that they were also talking about a history and English type non-credit college course....to bring people up to standards.
I expect in twenty years that as you graduate from high school...to get into any US university...you will have to attend twelve months of HS-level classes to satisfy most colleges. It says a lot about the ‘slippage’ of high school and the worthless value.
we used to have some smart people in this country...now, whalaa....we're all smart...
The slippage begins far before high school. In the quest to promote “higher thinking skills” and technology, the elementary school where I worked punished teachers for teaching vocabulary, spelling and drilling math skills. Traditional teachers were written up and chased off in the name of progress until the scores dropped a couple of years later. Too late to put the horse back in the barn at that point—the talent had left the building.
At the time our principal was pushing the district’s agenda, we knew these kids would suffer when it came time for the SAT. Students need to recognize poor grammar and incorrect spelling and have a vast vocabulary as part of the verbal portion of the SAT. I was a private tutor for a 5th grader who could not add 8+3 without using her fingers and she saw no purpose in memorizing her basic math facts. I kid you not!
And to top it off, this school was in an affluent area and its district was sought after. The parents bought in to the 21st century classroom bs. Literally a tragedy.