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By The Editorial Board

It’s much easier for members of the L.A. Unified school board sitting on the dais to pass stringent and unrealistic new standards than it is for teachers on the ground to carry them out. Case in point: the district’s requirement that all students take the full schedule of college-prep courses — and earn a grade of C or better — if they want to graduate. It isn’t working.

Passed a decade ago but given 12 years to be fully implemented, the graduation requirement was big on good intentions but short on common sense. School activists were right to demand change in 2005; the situation was unacceptable. Too few students even tried to take the courses, known as the A-G series, required for admission to the University of California and California State University. In many high schools, especially those where disadvantaged students were enrolled, the courses weren’t even available.

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