Here’s a &ref=education&oref=slogin”>story in the New York Times that helps explain why so many freshmen end up in remedial courses. It’s about a math teacher whose failing grade for a student was changed to a pass:

Mr. Lampros’s introduction to the high school’s academic standards proved a fitting preamble to a disastrous year. It reached its low point in late June, when Arts and Technology’s principal, Anne Geiger, overruled Mr. Lampros and passed a senior whom he had failed in a required math course.

That student, Indira Fernandez, had missed dozens of class sessions and failed to turn in numerous homework assignments, according to Mr. Lampros’s meticulous records, which he provided to The New York Times. She had not even shown up to take the final exam. She did, however, attend the senior prom.

The article attributes the pass to pressure to keep graduation rates up, and thereby continue to receive federal funding.