How Passing Grades Are Formulated

As I read this Dilbert cartoon this morning, I thought of school grades.  When too many students were failing regents, raw passing scores were lowered.  When kids failed classes, they were able to make them up by doing online assignments (or usually by having others do the assignments for them) or by showing up for two weeks at some Mickey Mouse class.  I even heard of an AP who let kids sign in for a gym class and then go to a room to have a teacher do the online assignment for with them.  It was reported to me that the same AP miraculously got failing grades on Friday to be passing grades on Monday.

The school is highly rated because it keeps graduation rates high.  It doesn't matter that kids are graduating knowing nothing and prepared for nothing and expect the world to keep operating in the same manner.