Employers are complaining that Michigan's graduates are under-equipped for today's jobs, and Rep. Potvin's solution is to weaken math requirements for high school students? Someone needs to wake that guy up. To suggest, as he has previously, that Algebra 2 is only necessary for college-bound students, and not for those attending technical or trade programs, is profoundly ignorant. Technical and vocational schools and community colleges expect a strong grasp of algebra for incoming students. (In fact, it was a prerequisite for an electronics class that I took in high school over ten years ago.) Students applying to four-year colleges and universities -- particularly in engineering and bio science fields, where there is a shortage of qualified applicants -- will be expected to know far more, perhaps calculus or advanced statistics. Lowering expectations of graduates is doing them a disservice. I am more willing to accept his proposal to weaken the foreign language requirement. But basic mathematics is not something that can wait for college. It is a requirement for getting into the door.