There is no end to the complaints leveled at the Bush Administrations education policy, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Now, Tennessee and North Carolina will be given an opportunity to prove if they really do know what is best for their students.

According to an article published Wednesday, May 18 on the CNN.com web site, “the two states may track how individual students perform in math and reading over time, known as a ‘growth model.’ Until now, states could only measure success or failure by comparing the scores of different groups of children from one year to the next. Many educators say that system is unfair because it does not recognize changes in the population or improvement by individual students.”
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High school guidance counselors are usually busy this time of year sending out transcripts, helping parents understand financial aid award letters, and meeting with their high school seniors about the latest round of SAT scores.

For many of these students, the news about their SAT score might be disheartening considering some colleges are reporting double-digit drops in the average SAT scores of applicants this year. Scores have dropped despite similar performance in class rank, college-prep coursework and other recommended credentials.

“We need to have confidence in the test that we’re using,” says Stephen Farmer, director of admissions at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill in a USA Today article.
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CNN.com reported that “the Bush administration on [last] Tuesday declared which high school programs are rigorous enough to qualify students for college aid.” What does this mean for students at your school?

For starters, only college freshmen and sophomores who complete a rigorous high school course of study can receive certain new grants approved by Congress. “In creating the math and science grants for poorer students, Congress ordered Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to judge which high school programs are challenging.”

Students will qualify if they:

Have an advanced or honors high school diploma, as offered in at least 19 states.

Completed the courses of the State Scholars Initiative, a congressionally backed program. It requires students to take four years of English, three years of math, three years of lab science, three and a half years of social studies, and two years of a language other than English. Fourteen states have the program now, and eight more are starting soon.

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