STORM2K

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2003
REFUSING TO FACE REALITY

HOPE Solution...
Add minimum SAT score as requirement.
Only give scholarship to those with an income less than X.
Make HOPE a loan that will be forgiven as long as a B average is maintained in college.
Create more lottery games to fund HOPE.

First .. a quick note to those of you who need a primer on Georgia's HOPE Scholarship. It's funded by the Georgia State Lottery. Briefly stated -- since the Hope Scholarships began in 1993 all Georgia high school grads with a "B" average or better would get their tuition to a Georgia college or university paid from lottery funds. Fees and books would also be covered.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is printing a series of articles on Georgia's HOPE Scholarships. You really need to read these articles ... they detail a lot more than the financial problems with the HOPE Scholarships. The series illustrates just how bad our system of government schools have become in Georgia.

If you've been paying attention you already know that in just a few years there isn't going to be enough money coming from the Georgia Lottery to cover the costs for students eligible for the scholarships. Fine ... now here's some things you probably didn't know:

Currently HOPE is subsidizing 100,000 students in Georgia colleges and universities.
More than one-half of last year's Georgia high school graduates qualified for the scholarship.
About 58% of students on HOPE scholarships bail out or flunk out of school before they complete 30 credit hours. Most of these students are gone by the end of their freshman year.
Consider those facts in light of the fact that Georgia has the worst government schools of any state in the nation. Only the District of Columbia scores worse.

Can someone please tell me how in the hell more than one-half of the students in one of the nation's worst school systems manage to graduate with a B average or better? When I was going to school a B was considered to be a superior grade. It was above average. Average was C. A D was below average and everybody knew what an F stood for. You should have to be a superior student to graduate high school with a B average. Superior high school graduates don't flunk out of college before they even get to their sophomore year.

They're considering all sorts of ways to save the HOPE scholarship. The politically correct method of fixing HOPE will be to put an income limit on those who receive the scholarships. The more successful your parents are, the less likely it is you will be able to get your HOPE scholarship.

Anyone with an ounce of sense knows what the problem is here. Two words: Grade inflation. Georgia's government school teachers are simply giving too many Bs to their students. These grades aren't being earned ... they're being handed out like hall passes ... passes to college.

No wonder these kids flunk out at the end of their first year? Could it be that they actually went off to college thinking that they were real, honest-to-goodness B students? Did they really think they had earned those grades? Surely not! You see, there's a big difference between high school teachers and college professors. College professors have standards. They don't hand out grades to please parents or to keep the heat off. If you want a B from a good college prof you pay attention, you read, you study, and you make good grades on tests. Many of the wonderful B average high school students in Georgia haven't read a book in their entire lives, and their grades were given to them by teachers who didn't want to be responsible for denying this particular kid his HOPE entitlement.

So ... enter the politicians. They know the HOPE Scholarship is immensely popular and they need to do something to save it. If this problem was turned over to a businessman for a solution he would simply instruct the teachers to make these kids once again earn their grades. Once again the average would get Cs, the best would get As and the dullards would get their richly deserved Fs.

But there will be no business approach here. The solution will be political ... and politicians aren't going to stand up to the teacher's unions. These unions have far too much political juice. There will be no requirement that students get their B average and at least a 1000 on their SATs. That would present too fat a target to the race warlords. (God forbid they should ever address the anti-achievement mentality that permeates their culture). The race demagogues and the teachers unions have sent the politicians running for cover. If you are part of a household earning over $100,000 a year, bend over and grab your ankles. You're in the crosshairs. Get used to the idea of paying for your kid's college and start socking money away. You are going to be punished for your success; punished because Georgia is so full of spineless politicians who can't stand up to the teacher's unions and the race pimps and make the HOPE scholarship what it was supposed to be ... a reward for excellence and hard work.

As for the lottery? I absolutely love it. No ... I don't play. I prefer investing to gambling. But I do love the sight of all of these people whom our politicians have tried ever so hard to protect from any tax liability at all going out there and gobbling up those lottery tickets like that. Let's face it, the lottery is a tax on stupidity. Gotta love it.

Note: In today's second installment of the AJC series on the HOPE scholarship they actually suggest that there's a bit of grade inflation going on in Georgia high schools. But .... will anything be done about it? Hint to parents. Don't be all that impressed with the high grades your kids age getting in Georgia government high schools. Chances are they were given, not earned.


FROM NEAL BOORTZ.COM

rainstorm wrote:If you are part of a household earning over $100,000 a year, bend over and grab your ankles. You're in the crosshairs. Get used to the idea of paying for your kid's college and start socking money away. You are going to be punished for your success; punished because Georgia is so full of spineless politicians who can't stand up to the teacher's unions and the race pimps and make the HOPE scholarship what it was supposed to be ... a reward for excellence and hard work.

College has never been a right... that's where things get screwy to egin with. You want to go to college? Don't expect the state to pay for it- no matter your skin color, socioeconomic background or your grades. No one should expect a free ride.

It's not a punishment to be forced to pay for college- it's a priviledge to GO to college. Much like no one's going to buy me a vehical to get from one place to another- if I don't buy one I can ride the bus... no one's required to pay for me to go to college- not my parents or the state. I can jsut go out into the workforce and lump it. It should be up to schools and private organizations/charities who decide which students are so exceptional that they are willing to give them the help they need to go to school.

Then again, I'm putting myself through college- 3 hours a semester, 2400$ a year with no help from anyone but myself and my full time job. It's going to take me another 8 years to get my degree. I got told out of high school that my 3.66 GPA wasn't in the top 25% of my class so I got no grade scholarships (IB schooling where some students who excelled were given the chance for 5 grade points instead of 4. Unfortuently I wasn't able to participate in the IB program, and the top 25% of the school had GPA's of 4.05 and above). I was too white to qualify for any racial scholarships, and my lump on a log parents were too rich to qualify for a "needs" based scholarship even though they told me to finance it myself.

I learned the hard way that college is a pay-per-view sport. No one was punished for thier success in the making of this Opera Ghost...

opera ghost wrote:

rainstorm wrote:If you are part of a household earning over $100,000 a year, bend over and grab your ankles. You're in the crosshairs. Get used to the idea of paying for your kid's college and start socking money away. You are going to be punished for your success; punished because Georgia is so full of spineless politicians who can't stand up to the teacher's unions and the race pimps and make the HOPE scholarship what it was supposed to be ... a reward for excellence and hard work.

College has never been a right... that's where things get screwy to egin with. You want to go to college? Don't expect the state to pay for it- no matter your skin color, socioeconomic background or your grades. No one should expect a free ride.

It's not a punishment to be forced to pay for college- it's a priviledge to GO to college. Much like no one's going to buy me a vehical to get from one place to another- if I don't buy one I can ride the bus... no one's required to pay for me to go to college- not my parents or the state. I can jsut go out into the workforce and lump it. It should be up to schools and private organizations/charities who decide which students are so exceptional that they are willing to give them the help they need to go to school.

Then again, I'm putting myself through college- 3 hours a semester, 2400$ a year with no help from anyone but myself and my full time job. It's going to take me another 8 years to get my degree. I got told out of high school that my 3.66 GPA wasn't in the top 25% of my class so I got no grade scholarships (IB schooling where some students who excelled were given the chance for 5 grade points instead of 4. Unfortuently I wasn't able to participate in the IB program, and the top 25% of the school had GPA's of 4.05 and above). I was too white to qualify for any racial scholarships, and my lump on a log parents were too rich to qualify for a "needs" based scholarship even though they told me to finance it myself.

I learned the hard way that college is a pay-per-view sport. No one was punished for thier success in the making of this Opera Ghost...

Dang...this is twice in a week I am forced to agree with you. I'm beginning to doubt my ultra-conservative leanings.

*Laughs* Remember- I only lean democratic. Soemtiems I ahve moments of pure conservative republican

the point of the story is the ones who do get to college have got there by grade inflation. they dont last, because they deserve to be there in the first place. they go and drop out. also, i agree no one has thee RIGHT to go to college, and no one should take my tax money to send someone to coolege that has no right to be there in the 1st place

*nods* I tend to agree with you- but as of this day there's no way to pick the brains of our school children to see who's grade has been inflated and who is prepared for college. SAT's and thier like are used, but the pass standards would appear to be too low- and even then what if a students strength is in essay or short answer and instead you try to evaluate them with multiple choice? It's not an easy objective to give school districts- be fair about grades.

I scored some 400 points higher on my SAT's than was required to get into the college I chose with my GPA. I still had a lot of trouble and dropped out after 2 years (I've since gone back) even though I was well above the entry standards.

There's no easy solution. How do you grade the intellegience of a student? Do you factor in attendance? Do you factor in maturity? Do you stick to straight knowledge- and if SO, how do you decide what is required of every child before they go off to any of the thousands of colleges avilable to choose from? The knowledge I needed for my local state school was much much different from a friend of mine who went to Harvard- and different still from a friend who went to a liberal school in Iowa... or my friends at UT and A&M. We all came from the same high school and had the same education, we all tested far above average for smarts and all had over 3.5 GPA's... We all had the right stuff going in- and there's me, a drop out and "advanced age" student- my friend the philosophy major is only going to graduate on time by deep meditation and prayers... our harvard friend who is churning out papers like clockwork and is going to graduate early- my Iowa friend who's grades are mediocre at best and wants to open a comic shop.

There's no good way to grade talent, potential, dedication... or even smarts. So for the time being we're going to have to take teachers on faith.

There are people, like myself that are intelligent, but may not test well. The ability to do well on quizzes and tests in elementary, junior high, high school and then on the SAT may not truly indicate what a person/student understands. I took the SAT twice and did slightly worse the second time, both scores were low.

As for paying for college. "They" make the cost for colleges so high that those that don't make enough money can't go and then they can't get a degree in the field they want to.

As for me, I would like to be a meteorologist, but college isn't for me. Not only probably not being able to get good enough grades with my intelligence, but my annoyances, if you will of the "college scene."