From the Orlando Sentinel, Lauren Ritchie,
Bang that gong
This summer, the target is dual enrollment.
The state Legislature in 2006 decreed that smart students with decent grades must be informed that they could simultaneously enroll for free in college courses while finishing high school. Students could get a high school diploma and an associate's degree at the same time.
A stern memo from the state's Office of Articulation (Office of Articulation? Is that a joke?) stated all the books would be free and costs waived for dual enrollment students. College classes should be taught at the high schools where possible. Local school districts should just make it happen, the memo ordered.
It happened, all right. Last year, some 50,000 students across Florida swarmed the community colleges, and the schools couldn't collect a nickel from them.
Statewide, the cost of dual-enrollment students was $50 million for the 2010-11 school year, and the locals had to just suck it up. For the school year that just ended, the price tag was more than $11 million for public colleges in Orange, Seminole, Brevard, Lake and Volusia counties.
Let the whining commence.
"Basically we're eating out of our hides so to speak," said Dick Scott, vice president for business affairs atLake-Sumter Community Collegein Leesburg.
"There's more demand for dual enrollment than we can possibly meet in our budget," said Sandy Shugart, president of Valencia College in Orlando.
Hearing any clanging gongs yet?
On Tuesday,Lake-Sumter's trustees considered whether to cap the number of classes that a dual-enrolled high school student can take. If the Lake school district won't pony up some cash, trustees are likely in July to impose the cap.
That's a maddening thought for Tavares High School senior Kallie Santos, a state champion speller who juggled two high-school classes, soccer and a full course load at Lake-Sumter last school year. She won't get her associate degree next year if trustees cut back on the classes.
"Times are tough, but they shouldn't penalize students who aim higher," Kallie said.
Of course not. But leave it to the manipulative state Legislature to set up the tension and step back to watch: Officially, state education officials are slobbering all over dual-enrollment they love it so much. That leaves local school districts and colleges trying to eat each other's young to pay for it. Nice strategy — for the elected types.
But how do you think that students will fare in this one? Conned. Count on it.
This is the annoying truth about a good education: It costs money. It's a lesson that the state Legislature never learns. For years, Florida has cared little about students in general and even less about the brightest ones. Officials demonstrate their lack of concern by repeatedly creating such obviously unsustainable programs as dual enrollment, which are supposed to promote education and prove that Florida cares.
Oh, officials talk plenty about the importance of learning, imposing accountability and readying students for the job market. But when it comes to paying for it, they always do it on the cheap. It shows. It's why the state of Mississippi, traditionally at the bottom of any nationwide education assessment, has come to love Florida.
Things have gotten to the point, unfortunately, where the motives of state officials are transparent to the likes of smart students like Kallie and to the teachers, parents and administrators who truly care about giving Florida students a boost in what has become a fiercely competitive global market.
Terry Geter, the mother of a Lake-Sumter dual-enrolled student, said it best in a letter to the college president, protesting the proposed cutbacks: "Thank you for leading the way in taking educational opportunities from great students."
Lritchie@tribune.com
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-06-24/opinion/os-ed-lauren-ritchie-duel-enrollment-062212-20120622_1_dual-enrollment-students-with-decent-grades-college-classes
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