Oregon’s done it by dumbing down the state math tests, Washington has done by putting off tougher standards and 24 other states have done the same according to the NYT (here). The lesson here is that when called upon to actually follow through on these promises to smarten up the nation’s kids, the educrats in the education industrial complex chicken out.

“The real pattern in states has been that the standards are lowered so much that the exams end up not benefiting students who pass them while still hurting the students who fail them,” said John Robert Warren, an expert on exit exams and a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
“The exams are just challenging enough to reduce the graduation rate,” Professor Warren added, “but not challenging enough to have measurable consequences for how much students learn or for how prepared they are for life after high school.”