"as long as you pass your EOG you pass your grade"

This has got to be the stupidest thing I have every heard. Recently my 5th grader and I were having a conversation about his grades at school. He informed me that it didn't matter what his grades where, as long as he passed his EOG he passed his grade. He went on to inform me that his teachers told him that it didn't matter if he failed his regular classes all year, he wouldn't be held back as long as he passed the EOG. This is the most absurd, stupidest thing I have ever heard. "It's ok little Timmy if you don't learn anything all year long, we will send you to the next grade where you are clueless about what is going on just as long as you manage to somehow pass the EOG". How in the world has our education system come to this. How can we expect our students to succeed in the next grade when they did not grasp the lessons taught in the current grade? We keep pushing them through the system and they keep getting further and further behind. It is no wonder we have high school students with the math and reading skills of an elementary school student. Every grade builds on the things the students learned in the previous year. If the student did not learn what they needed there is no way they can take the new lessons and grow. That would be like trying to build a house without following the proper steps. "I didn't get time to lay the block for my foundation but I'm gonna go ahead and poor the concrete anyways. Or I didn't build the foundation but I will build the frame for the house anyways." This will result in a structure that is unsound and dangerous to attempt to live in. How about, the electrician didn't wire the house, but I don't want to wait to paint so I'm gonna let the sheet-rock hangers go ahead and do their jobs. I want the room to look presentable as soon as possible. You will either wind up with a room that has no electricity or else you will have a mess when you try to go back and add it. The same thing happens with our students when they are pushed through without getting the information. Your numbers on retention and promotion may look good, but there is nothing there. Or your teachers have a time trying to go back to previous grade materials just to get the student to a point where they can begin to teach them the new materials.
      Something has got to change with this whole way of thinking. It doesn't help anyone. It results in overworked teachers, stressed out administrations and students who have been set up for failure. As a well respected professor recently said, "If teachers would stop focusing so much on the test and get off their butts and teach, then they wouldn't have to worry about the tests. The students would be learning and would already know the materials."