The purpose of a system is what it does

It amused me to learn that the youngest person so far to graduate from a US high school was a 6-year-old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Kearney

If a motivated 6-year-old can graduate from an American public high school, that tells me the academic standards are a joke. Of course, I knew that already having attended American public schools myself.

But wait, there's more:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/03/30/baltimore-city-public-schools-promoted-student-with-013-gpa-while-spending-a-14-billion-budget/

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A Baltimore mom recently learned her high school senior had a 0.13 GPA yet ranked 62/120 in his class. The student had flunked all but three classes during his first three years of high school.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d_JT8w_eo4

I don't regret soldiering on for 12 years when I could have graduated early by skipping a grade and/or going to summer school. I will note that it is absurd to herd together students of vastly different ability and motivation into the same cohort based merely on age.

The American instinct toward egalitarianism tells us that yes, everyone should take algebra, even if they can't pass it after taking it three times. Only our prosperity makes such waste possible. As imperfect a measure of intelligence as IQ is, it correlates strongly with academic achievement and other forms of success. But it is taboo in the US to notice such things; see for example how Charles Murray was pilloried for writing about the social effects of IQ.

Fun fact: it was named "high school" in the past because only the top students went there at first:

https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/02/12/us-high-school-graduation-rate-hits-all-time-high

If US public education produces poor results year after year at great expense, then that is because the people running it want it that way. The purpose of a system is what it does. 

Any realistic assessment would conclude that only about the top 20% or so of students have the ability and desire to benefit from high school and even fewer from college. It is a travesty that high schools have mostly become very expensive minimum-security prisons to confine teens until they become legal adults. I look forward to the day that changes for the better. Until then, I will do my best to affect positive change as a teacher and educated adult.