America needs to restore high standards before our schools become completely worthless

America’s kids are paying a steep price for lower standards and less testing in schools — and there’s no obvious sign of a turnaround.It’s particularly troubling for New York kids, especially as state “leaders” have decided to stop requiring passing scores on Regents exams to graduate high school starting in the 2027-’28 school year.How crucial are hard standards? Well, after colleges (in the benighted name of “equity”) stopped requiring SAT or ACT scores as part of the admissions process a few years back, a host of high schools evidently stopped teaching the skills needed to do well on such tests — even though such skills are vital to getting through college, and life.Kids who are unprepared don’t face consequences until it’s too late — i.e., when they’re already in college and struggling to do the work expected of them.A new report out of the University of California San Diego flagged just how dire the issue is: Though US News ranks UCSD No.6 in the nation among public universities, fully 900 of its incoming freshmen this year (an eighth of the class, and 30 times as many as in 2020) lacked high-school-level math skills.About 630 (one in 12) couldn’t even do middle-school-level math.All these kids needed remedial math classes; then again, even Harvard University — Harvard! — has found it has to offer remedial math to freshmen.How’d this happen? Consider: Almost all the UC freshmen took advanced math courses in high school; a quarter got straight A’s.Obviously, their high schools figured just taking the class and getting a good grade would be good enough; no need for students to actually learn the material.They knew that a lack of preparation wouldn’t keep students from getting into college — since, without SAT or ACT results, admissions staffs would just rely on (inflated) grades.Nor is the problem limited to math: As the UC San Diego report notes, writing and language skills of first-year students have also plunged.Pand...