Some high school graduates are proficient in calculus while others struggle with algebra.

Some graduates can write complex sentences without pondering the mysteries of clauses, while others can’t distinguish between the passive and active voices.

But despite the range in accomplishments, it’s hardly an extreme notion that Oregon students should demonstrate basic abilities in math and writing before they receive a diploma.

Beyond the obvious reason — after 12 years in school, students ought to be capable of proving they’ve learned a certain amount in those two subjects — to distribute diplomas to students who lack these skills is to set them on a potential path of frustration and failure, particularly if they go to college.

But Oregon’s Democrat-controlled Legislature thinks differently.

Lawmakers recently passed Senate Bill 744, which now awaits Gov. Kate Brown’s signature. The bill will suspend for the next three years the Essential Skills graduation requirement, and it directs the state Department of Education to evaluate how Oregon determines graduation requirements.

(Rep. Bobby Levy of Echo and Sen. Bill Hansell of Athena voted against Senate Bill 744, while Rep. Greg Smith of Heppner voted for it.)

An evaluation is reasonable.

But it’s hardly necessary to waive the current requirements while evaluating them.

Oregon initially suspended the Essential Skills requirement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, during which many students in the state have taken mostly, or only, online classes.

That suggests, if nothing else, that “comprehensive distance learning” wasn’t especially comprehensive.

Another flaw in the concept is that it ignores the reality that most students preparing to graduate were subjected to distance learning for less than a year and a half. Surely it’s not too much to expect that many of those students would have acquired the necessary skills to show proficiency even before computers monitors replaced actual classrooms.

An organization that supports the bill, Foundations for a Better Oregon, said in a statement, “An inclusive and equitable review of graduation and proficiency requirements, when guided by data and grounded in a commitment to every student’s success, will promote shared accountability and foster a more just Oregon.”

That statement falls squarely within the category of “sounds nice but what, exactly, does it mean?”

First, why would any review of graduation requirements be anything except “inclusive and equitable” if the same standards, as they do now, apply to all students?

Second, what evidence is there the current graduation requirements are not “grounded in a commitment to every student’s success”? What else would they be grounded in? The entire purpose of graduation requirements is to ensure that students have learned what they need to learn to have a chance to be successful.

The last part of the sentence from Foundations for a Better Oregon is even more perplexing. What does “shared accountability” mean in this context? That schools are responsible for teaching, and students for learning? If so, just say that.

It’s a laudable goal to improve Oregon’s graduation requirements. High school diplomas should have relevance; they should ensure the students who receive one have, during the preceding years, learned enough to pursue a productive life as an adult.

But suspending such requirements, even for a few years, is more likely to hurt students, by awarding them diplomas that imply a level of education they haven’t actually attained.