For starters, Oregon passed a temporary lowering of the "essential skills proficiency" requirement through the 2021/22 school year in order to qualify enough students for graduation.

#1 Red Flag Alert 

Why, by the 8th grade, were these children not able to read with comprehension and write clearly and intelligibly? And why couldn't they do basic math operations?

But it gets worse: now Oregon's legislators have voted to extend the ability to graduate from high school without basic proficiency in reading, writing, or math through the 2023/24 school year

What?

#2 Red Flag Alert 

Why are Oregon's children spending 12 years in school to get an education when an education is not to be got? 

Status

It's incredible that in Oregon, even if a student lacks basic literacy, they can still obtain a high school diploma. Oregon may be on it's way to claiming the status of the state with the highest graduation rate, at 81.3% in 2022.

But with less than half of its students proficient in English and only ⅓ proficient in math, it will soon also become the most ignorant state in the Union. 

Logic

Oregonian's logic: they want to support the immigrant and minority students who are unable to pass the high school proficiency exam, and therefore, will be unable to graduate if they do not lower the state graduation requirements. 

While that's a kind and noble gesture on the part of the Oregonian legislators, pardon my frankness, but it's also insanely stupid.

Let's apply their logic to other fields of study to fully grasp nonsensical this approach is.

How safe would we be if we lowered the standards for students in a police academy and let them graduate without being  able to shoot straight? Or we could graduate surgeons who can't cut straight or doctors who can't remember which medicine goes to which illness. 

The Danger of Ignorance

How is failing to teach our children to read, write, and compute any less dangerous? Ignorant people are easy to manipulate and coerce into adopting ideas and beliefs that may be harmful to society and harmful to one's well-being. 

You need look no further than America. We have high divorce rates, increasingly high mental health problems; unprecedented levels of discontentment; and a general loss of all the things that really matter such as family, love, community, and belief in God. 

A country of material abundance and fragmented hearts.

All since the 1960's clarion cry to reject tradition and adopt this new set of ideas and beliefs which have led us straight into—if research is tells us anything—a hell-like existence which seems to be making its way around the world.

Seeds Planted

If you want to understand where these new ideas took root, you have to go back to Marin County, California during the 1970's. It's all in this documentary about an idyllic county north of the Golden Gate Bridge, the county I grew up in. 

I once heard Leonard Sax speak, and he said that America was no place to raise children. To that I would say, he's right, but if you have no choice, at least keep them away from California. 

Why Go to School?

The solution to children who do not meet the graduation requirements is not to lower the standards to the level of illiteracy, but to address the needs of these children which prevent them from keeping up with their classmates.

In the cases of immigrant and minority students, from what I understand, English language is the barrier. 

Well, that's a no brainer; teach them English before they enroll in school. Why would you put a child into a school where the lessons are taught in a language they don't understand? 

Solution

To lower our standards even further is to slip into abyss of dunces.  We need to raise our standards in all 50 states because they are already shamefully and inexcusably low.

Why should children go to school if they aren’t developing basic literacy skills? They would be better off at home learning how to read from you and a room full of good books at their disposal.

For the Oregonian legislators who voted yes on this bill; they should be temporarily suspended.

May I recommend Peter Kreefe's book, Socratic Logic which should be mandatory reading before these public servants are allowed back at work.  

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Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

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