From Bryan Fischer, Idaho Values Alliance

State Superintendent Tom Luna supports a “dual enrollment” policy which would allow high school students to get a jump start on their college education while still enrolled in Idaho high schools.

Some version of this policy makes good educational and fiscal sense, and should be very attractive to Idaho families.

Idaho gives its “graduation test” (the ISAT) in the 10th grade. A student who passes the test as a sophomore has, according to Idaho standards, demonstrated his academic proficiency in the subjects we have decided every high school graduate must know.

It makes little sense, then, to strap such a student into his seat for another two years for more high school education when he has already passed what the education establishment calls the “high stakes” graduation exam.

We ought to allow high school students who have passed the ISAT to immediately start working either on a college degree or to begin pursuing a trade by entering a votech school or beginning an apprenticeship. The many distance learning tools available would enable college-bound students to continue living at home, if their families choose, in their 17th and 18th years.

Further, the $10,000 a year of taxpayer money that we spend educating each junior and senior could be made available as financial assistance for college or trade school. This creates the possibility that by the time today’s student graduates high school the same student in the high school of tomorrow could already have the first two years of college under his belt.

The state wouldn’t spend any more money on education under this proposal than it does now, and yet Idaho families would be left with just two years of undergraduate tuition to cover rather than four by the time their student turns 18.

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