I saw this sort of situation in a number of classes, both in high school and college (and I was a math TA in college.)
Students being passed without having the knowledge they need to continue, I forget what the term for it is.
When I tool HS Algebra (1976 or so,) the teacher was just marking time until retirement. The school administration had a policy of weekly quizes, and every Friday, he gave a 10 question quiz. A score of 5 (out of 10) or better gave an ‘A.’ 4 received a ‘B.’ 3 a C, 2 or lower a D. The only way to fail a quiz was to not turn in a piece of paper with your name on it. Seriously, a blank page except for your name would get you a D!
Not a single student was held back, and just let me say, he was a terrible teacher to boot!
Mark
If you think some students didn’t understand math years ago, you’d be surprised at how bad things are now.
College students, no matter what color, have very poor math skills and need to take remedial courses. I’m not talking algebra or calculus performance. I’m talking arithmetic.
A significant percentage of them can’t answer this question: Which is larger, 0.09 or 0.12?
They will answer 0.09 and when asked why they will say because everything works backwards to the right of the decimal.