A High School Diploma… For Nothing

by Lee Duigon

Would you want to hire someone who couldn’t read, couldn’t write, and couldn’t do math? If so, Oregon’s public high schools will soon have graduates who fill the bill!

Late last month the Oregon legislature and governor passed a law that, in its own words, “prohibits the State Board of Education from requiring for a high school diploma that student show proficiency in any academic content area if student successfully completed credit requirements”.

In other words, as long as the student actually showed up for class and sat there at his desk all year, he doesn’t have to have learned anything to get a diploma.

Oh, yeah! The legislature voted to “suspend academic standards” for five years. Would you like to try to guess why they did that? I mean, there’ll be students in Oregon’s high schools who’ll be in there for four whole years without learning bupkus. No reading, no writing, no math. Under the circumstances, it would seem pointless for teachers to hand out grades, and unlikely that students would motivate themselves to learn, given that they’ll get their diplomas regardless of their grades.

Unless you’re some ninny in the State House, you’ll never be able to come up with a reason for all this. But of course those ninnies have an explanation.

They’re going to go without any academic standards at all until they can—drum roll, please!—dream up new, “equitable graduation standards”… for, now you’ll guess it, minorities!

See, minorities just can’t learn anything unless it’s real, real easy. High school reading levels are beyond their grasp. Ditto writing and math. They couldn’t do anything at all, without white liberals to make things easy for them.

Am I the only one who finds this insulting, condescending, and offensive? Five years—on purpose!—without any academic standards. Think they’ll reduce the school tax, given that the students won’t be learning anything? Don’t hold your breath.

The phrase “the soft racism of low expectations” springs to mind. I don’t see how expectations can get any lower than this.

Yeahbut, yeahbut! They’ll still be teaching that there are forty or fifty different “genders.” You know they’ll want to keep on teaching Hypocritical Race Theory: teachers’ unions have already doubled down on that. But reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic (never mind algebra!)—those subjects are just too hard.

At least you won’t have to acquire any proficiency in Hypocritical Race Theory. Or anything else, for that matter, for the next five years.

Anyone who’s not a leftid would think the schools want to hold back minority students, keep them from achieving anything, withhold from them the knowledge that they’ll need to get ahead in life. And make the public pay for it!

Because we always pay, don’t we? Our public education system costs a fortune, and every penny of it comes out of our paychecks. We pay for it, lock, stock, and barrel—but we don’t own it, do we? We have no say in what gets taught—or, in this case, neglected—or who gets hired to teach it. If we question the curriculum, the teachers’ union sues us! Shut up and pay.

And for the next five years in Oregon, at least as far as the high schools are concerned, what will the public get for all those tax dollars that they pony up?

Nothing! No academic standards. Because “minorities,” they tell us, just can’t meet those standards. (Note to minorities: you need to stop listening to white liberals.)

Our public education system is needed in interstellar space, out beyond the OortCloud.

It’s not needed here on earth.

I have discussed these and other topics throughout the week on my blog, http://leeduigon.com/ . Click the link and stop in for a visit before Big Tech decides you can’t. My articles can also be found at www.chalcedon.edu/ .

E-Mail Lee Duigon: leeduigon@verizon.net