In my country, the bar is actually lower.

Math is taught as a mandatory subject, but no one (and I mean no one) must know a single thing of it to finish school (Math is taught until the fifth year of high school, which is the tenth grade in the United States). If a student doesn't know anything about math, they will just have to get a math lower grade (let's say 4) to get an average grade (50-55) and pass to the next year. If that student repeats the course twice, they will repeat the year. Also, math is one of the easiest subjects at school, just some stupid facts that everyone knows that is repeated to death. However, math is always under the shadow of other subjects, which are more interesting to the system, but they are of no use in practice. For example, once I got an F in math (0 grade) but still passed all the other subjects that year.