<p>^ ^</p>
<p>For that system to work, even the “college track” at many US K-12 schools…including some mediocre privates need to ramp up their standards in basics such as writing and basic math up to algebra/geometry. </p>
<p>It’s a serious issue when a sizable chunk of the college track kids have to take remedial writing and math courses as college freshmen. In the math area…I’ve seen remedial students struggling through learning multiplication/division of fractions and one elementary ed ex-GF of a friend feel put upon during undergrad by struggling through basic algebra that’s usually offered in 9th grade in many decent US high schools. </p>
<p>Heck, the GED is regarded as so substandard based on previous hiring experience that even the US Army has had a restrictive max quota on % of GED recruits they accepted…and those recruits must score much higher on the ASVAB than their regular HS graduate counterparts. Only way around that restrictive quota is for the potential recruit to take some undergrad courses which then makes him/her the equivalent of a regular HS grad in the Army’s perspective. </p>
<p>Understandable considering back in the late '90s while tutoring a dropout sibling of a friend, I found the GED had extremely shallow coverage of algebra and geometry to the point it barely was the equivalent of 10th grade math at a decent regular high school.</p>