Like a giant mythical dragon stomping across the countryside, the Big Day has come and gone, but its echoes are sure to remain for a long time to come. The Nevada High School Proficiency Exam paid us a visit on March 27 -- and in its thunderous wake, I can already sense the ensuing tsunami from the professional opinion-makers: the politicians, the columnists and the school district movers and shakers.

In case anyone is curious about the opinion of an actual high school math teacher, here goes:

Upon arrival at my current port of call within the Clark County School District, I was amazed and delighted to learn that all of my students -- nearly 300 of them -- would be taking geometry. Ah, geometry! The jewel in the crown! The soul of ancient Greece! By far the most profound and challenging of all high school mathematics classes. I might have dared to think civilization itself was not collapsing, after all.

And to tell a secret, I was even a little intimidated. Notwithstanding the fact that I'm a highly qualified calculus teacher according to every local, state and federal law, I still felt a tremor of trepidation at the thought of facing all those scholarly young prodigies. But it was a mountain I was zealously anxious to climb.

And then ... what was it again? I think it was the 67 percent class average on that first test -- the test that was supposed to be a review of basic math. Yes, it was somewhere around then that I started to wonder if the rainbow was just an illusion.

Indeed, that was only the beginning of the downward spiral into oblivion. I doubt any of my subsequent tests have had such a high average. The rest have probably been in the 40s.

That's for multiple choice tests.

Using notes.

It wasn't long before I approached my department chair about all this. I can still remember my exact words. "How? How? How?" I cried like a Dr. Seuss character. "How did these kids ever pass algebra?" At this point, my department chair calmly explained that a lot of them had not. District policy was to move them forward, regardless of whether they had passed the prerequisite course. My response, as I recall, was both eloquent and colorful, and judging from my department chair's reaction, highly entertaining.

I don't really question anyone's good intentions, odd as that might seem. I can appreciate the fatigue the district has experienced while watching massive numbers of students endlessly repeat the same basic math classes under a dozen different titles. Unfortunately, the Titanic went to the floor of the Atlantic on exactly these sorts of good intentions.

Mathematics is a ladder on which no rung can be skipped without inevitable disaster. And disaster is the only word I can find to describe what is going on. Wave upon wave of gargantuan, relentless, catastrophic failure.

Perhaps this is what state Sen. Bob Beers was referring to when he described the district as a bureaucracy that "sucks the enthusiasm from its employees." I echo that sentiment -- though, of course, I mean it in the nicest possible way.

But even this doesn't quite tell the whole story. I have many students who supposedly did well in earlier math classes, though their level of knowledge is grossly inconsistent with their grades.

I don't have to ponder the reasons. This nationwide phenomenon is the result of grading systems that are ... how can I say it? The systems are cluttered? Convoluted? Creative? I'm groping for some nice word to use other than "padded."

Well, OK. Let's say padded.

Consider a class whose grade is based 70 percent on tests and 30 percent on what we euphemistically describe as "homework and participation." The district regards this as acceptable, perhaps even ambitious. With such a system, a student with a 59 percent exam average can turn in a pile of copied homework and get a 71 percent final score for the quarter. An F becomes a C.

In fact, the homework doesn't even need to be copied with any great care. Let's be honest: It is highly unlikely any teacher is meticulously grading hundreds of homework papers every day. I give it a glance, and I see no purpose in pretending otherwise.

I hope the semester exam will help to balance out the giveaways -- maybe, maybe not, depending upon what is on the test, or how much it will count, or what sort of "review" is provided in advance. This does not help students learn. It does not encourage them to learn. It only masks what they have not learned.

This excessive credit for "homework and participation," while well-intentioned, is poisoning our entire educational system -- not to mention the future of the empire -- and I hope to see the day when administrators argue against it, rather than for it.

The years go by. Teachers grow desperate to see even just a few decent grades on their latest test. When that hope is dashed, we reach a point where we cannot listen to the complaints and the hostility from students and parents. "Every other teacher gives points for this and that, why don't you?" English translation: "I demand the right to get a good grade without passing exams." And the teachers wear down. And so go the standards.

Make no mistake, the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the students -- but the consequences are growing every day.

We reach the epilogue of this drama when a student arrives in high school without the ability to multiply single-digit numbers, or read an analog clock dial, or identify a triangle.

This is today's reality. I am not referring to immigrants. Nor to isolated cases. This is a bottomless pit of inexcusable, home-grown, mass-produced ignorance. Language is not the barrier. Neither is poverty a likely excuse, judging from the ubiquitous cell phones and sneakers and music players, and the new gizmos I don't even know the names of -- unearned rewards that parents are absurdly eager to provide.

I hope my friends and colleagues will accept these words in the spirit intended. I bear no ill will toward those who I believe are truly convinced they are doing the right thing, and I am as guilty as any. But whether it stings or not, my conscience demanded this -- not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.

When I was in second grade, back in the era of the abacus and clay tablets, I vividly remember how my heart sank when I discovered I would be getting that teacher everybody hated. She was a curmudgeonly old prune who didn't care how many kids she had to leave back if they didn't know how to read. Everybody called her nasty names. I probably did too. Miss Baggypants. I remember whining to my mother about it, but she didn't lift a finger.

Today I can read.

I'm awfully sorry I don't remember her name, but God bless Miss Baggypants. And Mom.

Greg Barone is a math teacher at Western High School.