Sarge -
When in hell DID all that business about getting moved along in grades without having basic knowledge get started, and why? I'm not real clear about that, it seemed to happen overnight while everybody was looking the other way, thinking everything was normal in schools!
I never heard of such a thing in school! By God we ALL knew for SURE we weren't gonna pass a grade if we could not complete our finals. The simple act of passing final tests used to be a pretty fair indicator that the proficiency in a subject area had been gained, and we did not need standardized tests either. In fact, it used to be kinda fun to be in a given class, say in English or History, where a certain teacher had a reputation for writing real hard or very easy finals. We actually used to make a kind of sport out of comparing test questions after the fact. I think that fact was a very strong motivator to buckle down and at least get a "C". Being kept back a grade was just about the worst form of threat imaginable, amounting to utter social humiliation. There were, of course, always the rare breed who could not care less, but we all sort of knew where they were most likely to end up and had little to do with them if they couldn't at least pass a freakin' school test. Nobody expected that EVERYONE was gonna be National Merit scholars.
On the other hand too, there was NO possibility of so much as sassing a teacher back either. Anyone who tried that was persona non grata immediately and forever.
I'm starting to think that maybe all this was one of those unintended consequences of the 60s "counter culture"?
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