The key is moving away from a final grade at the end of the semester and moving toward lots of “final” grades along the way, with make-up work any time you don’t earn an “A” on a test. Then you retake the test to demonstrate that you have learned the material.

The amount of material you’d be expected to master to graduate would be smaller than the amount of material you’re currently expected to be exposed to.

When I complain that most of the courses young people are required to take will never be used and will be almost completely forgotten within a year, I am sometimes told that, while this is true, young people need to be exposed to all these courses to find out what they are interested in. One could then argue that it really doesn’t matter if they forget most of what they were exposed to in high school. The ones who are interested in a particular subject will take more courses and get good at it. They will forget what they don’t use and are not interested in. The latter is unfortunate but not really important. (If it is important, just about every high school in America stands condemned.)

A necessary implication of this model is that requiring students to master a course before they advance would take much longer than the present system for most people. Not only would peer groups be broken up (a no-no in present day public schooling) but lots of kids would have to be retained well past current compulsory attendance age in order to get full exposure.