HOPE IS DYING...
Georgia's lottery-funded scholarship program, which promises a full ride to all students who graduate with a B average or better, has "successed" itself to the brink of extinction. So many students have stepped up to and met the challenge that the payouts will soon overtake the revenue. The link below will lead you to the latest debate in the statehouse over the governor's proposal for how to remedy this: adding SAT scores to the requirement. Ahh, that controversial SAT. Raises all the old questions: Is pencil and paper testing a fair measurement of aptitude, intelligence, or ability? Or an accurate predictor of college success? Is it still racially and culturally biased?
I think this proposal reveals a few things. Not the least of which is that our legilators do not believe every teacher's B is a real B. (i.e., a B at Southside is not the same as a B at Westiminster). Okay, so we need a uniform standard. But why make the SAT that standard? Would the Graduation Test do? Better yet, instead of making the scholarship harder to obtain, why not find ways to come up with the money? Of course, thae fact that it's funded by a lottery is another can of worms in itself.
I say add a financial need factor in there. There are plenty of kids whose parents can pay for their four years without making a major dent in their budgets. Thus HOPE goes to kids who could easily have paid for college anyway, or who qualified for plenty of other scholarships. A girl was interviewed on the local public radia station this morning who said that since her tuition was covered by HOPE, her parents bought her an expensive new car to cruise around in. Anyway, that's food for thought.
Democrats to fight HOPE link to SAT Democratic leaders vowed Sunday to fight any effort to tie the HOPE scholarship to how students perform on the SAT, a proposal Gov. Sonny Perdue wants state leaders to consider. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
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