So, the answer to people failing at basic mathematics and being unable to pass high school or college is to simply lower the standards? Why stop at mathematics?

So, the answer to people failing at basic mathematics and being unable to pass high school or college is to simply lower the standards? Why stop at mathematics? Why not stop short of anything beyond being able to write Tweets or just figure out where the signature box on a loan application is (but not understand all those funny things that come before it)? Many want to say college degrees aren't necessary. I say fine, great that's awesome. For this NY Times article, I say, well of what utility is a high school education? I think it benefits society for people to be able to read at least enough for Google to sell people text-based advertising that most citizens can modestly understand so we should have training to a fourth grade level or so. But really, once you know "1+1" then just leave it that and it's time to go to the Nissan plant. This just seems like someone saw the movie Idiocracy and decided "that's a good plan." We have a bad education system in some ways in the U.S? Much of it is probably related to poverty and, perhaps, to some extent, parental irresponsibility. This is just pathetic. The idea that we should just throw away any standards is hard to take serious. For many people in this audience, it would probably benefit us greatly, financially, but if you care about society as whole, it doesn't sound very appealing.