Democrat-only-run blue cities are famous for their free stuff, and now it's starting to get disgusting.

Via RealClearInvestigations, get a load of this one earlier this week from Susan Edelman of the New York Post:

Going to class is not required to receive a city diploma. It's not widely advertised, but under Department of Education rules, students cannot be denied credit or graduation "based on lack of seat time alone." Under state law, school districts may adopt a "minimum attendance standard." New York City does not. While city schools must take attendance, kids can still pass or be promoted even if chronically absent, which is missing more than 10 percent of days.

The Post's Bob McManus wrote in a column:

It has been forever since kids were required to learn anything important to obtain a high school diploma in New York City — but who knew that they didn't even need to go to class?

And here's how bad it is, from Edelman:

The loose policy — each school defines it's [sic] own "expectations" — leaves room for dishonest educators to let truants skate by with minimal make-up work in English, math and other core subjects, experts say. Maspeth High School, currently under investigation by the Queens District Attorney's office and the DOE, has exploited this loophole by giving "worksheets" to teens who have missed months of classes. Expectations are low. "If students hand in anything, whether it's correct or not, you have to pass them," said one of multiple Maspeth whistleblowers who described pressure by administrators to pass kids who do not earn it.

Her piece has tons of really revolting specific examples of stoners and other lowlifes who hadn't shown up to class for months yet still walked off with something called "regent's diplomas" and walk the school stage for graduation. Some had buddies do their "worksheets" for them. Some of the "graduates" even posed for pictures for the Post.

Now, what's vivid here is that New York City is embroiled in other battles with the smart, high-achieving students, many of them Asian and Asian-American, who are being shut out of the city's prestigious public schools with actual standards, based on wokely affirmative action considerations. They're being told to go to these zero-standard truant dumps instead, where a hardworking kid's "regent's diploma" means exactly the same thing as the one held by a stoner who graduated on a "worksheet" done by someone else who could read and write — which is to say essentially worthless.

What it shows is the miasma of leftism, which is all about creating a society of zero standards and never holding anyone accountable. Under blue-city one-party rule, in Bill de Blasio's New York, but actually, wherever it's found, academic achievement is "just as good" as truancy. Teachers who teach nothing are the same as teachers who do. Crooks and thugs are free to prey on and plague paying riders with no consequences because all are equal and none must be inconvenienced and only cops are a problem. Holding a criminal record is the same as not holding a criminal record in matters of public jobs. Citizenship is the same as non-citizenship. Men and women and men who say they are women are all the same. Nothing is worth fighting for or dying for; all is leveled — except leftism.

This is the recipe for creating a dump, a socialist hellhole. Any questions as to why these places are seeing their residents flee?

Image credit: Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with Public Domain Pictures item.