Monday, December 08, 2014

Kentucky Education Commissioner Says Dual Credit Programs Need Improvement

This from WFPL:
The Kentucky Department of Education will discuss with a legislative panel Monday ways to improve dual-credit opportunities for high school students.

Dual-credit allows students to simultaneously earn high school and college credit. Some say this could help save students money as college tuition rates continue to rise.

But state Education Commissioner Terry Holliday said many dual-credit programs operating in school districts aren’t preparing students for college or careers.

“Kids were getting dual-credit in technical programs, but then they could not pass the industry certifications. They couldn’t even pass our occupational skills assessment, our state assessments," said Holliday.

High schools, colleges and businesses need to be involved to improve the state’s dual-credit programs, he said.

The education department will present a task force led report to Kentucky's interim joint education committee Monday. Holliday said the state isn’t likely to consider major changes to how to pay for dual credit programs until the 2016 legislative session.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Commissioner is on point regarding this issue. Many high schools have abandoned (or significantly scaled back) AP courses to offer dual credit courses. Syllabi for dual credit courses serve as the only standard (benchmark) for students' learning; whereas, AP courses tightly are aligned to "rigorous" standards that are assessed by an end-of-course examination. If high schools are going to be allowed to offer the dual credit courses, there should be a requirement that course content must reflect the same rigorous standards required by the College Board for AP courses and that the final examination be aligned to AP examinations.

This will never fly with the college community who will scream infringement of academic freedom.