Governor Miller's HOPE Proposal Modified
May 28, 1997
Today, a second article by Diane Loupe appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, this one entitled "Home-schooled given HOPE." See page A8 of the Constitution. This article reports changes to Governor Miller's proposal, based on the reaction of members of the Georgia Student Finance Commission. A few key quotes from the article are given below.
"The Georgia Student Finance Commission, which oversees HOPE, amended rules governing the lottery-funded scholarship that will allow nontraditional students to earn HOPE scholarships two ways. Students who are taught at home will be able to earn the HOPE scholarship for courses as early as this summer if they earn a to-be-determined minimum score on four subject-area SAT II tests...."
"The scores to qualify for a HOPE scholarship may differ from the scores needed by a home-schooled student ... to be admitted to a Georgia college or university."
"Commission member C. Mark Miller argued that "higher standards should be set" for homeschooled students to be eligible for HOPE scholarships. He proposed requiring home-educated students to earn a SAT II score that exceeded the equivalent of a "B" average in the typical high school."
"After other members argued that it wasn't fair to hold those students to a higher standard, Miller amended his motion to require home-schooled students to have SAT II scores at least equal to a high school "B" average to get the scholarship."
"The Georgia General Assembly in March approved adding $6.1 million to the HOPE scholarship program to allow home-schooled students ... to qualify for HOPE scholarships after a year in college ... [with] a "B" average."
A few observations about this proposal:
1. To require homeschoolers to have at least the equivalent of a "B" score on each of the SAT II tests is likely to be a higher standard than that of a "B" average grade point. Those homeschoolers who score lower than a "B" on one test will not be allowed to offset that against a higher performance on another test, because there is no "averaging" of the SAT II scores.
2. ETS was contracted by the Board of Regents to determine the SAT II scores equivalent to a "C" student's performance. In all likelihood, another contract will be required to determine the corresponding "B" student scores.
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