And I'll add my two cents - College Credit Plus in Ohio where the kids leave the high school to attend a local college is the greatest threat to our local high school system as we know it. If I was a school board member, I'd find the funds to get as many very good teachers as possible certified to offer CCP at the local high school. We can not afford this brain and financial drain in our schools.
Why is it that you feel leaving the HS to go to college is the scourge of the local HS schools? I was more tahn happy to start school in Chicago and CLEP out of several courses in English, Foreign Language and Psych.
Good question Tom and in this case, I'm only speaking of Ohio because that is the only system of school funding that I'm intimately familiar with. In Ohio, the money follows the student. In other words, the local district bears the cost of those kids attending a public college including their books. Our local high school had over 150 kids out of a student body of 800 attend college this year and that number is expected to rise to 200 this coming school year. That's a large sum of money leaving the district and being transferred to colleges. This is a district that in FY 1995 got 44.69% of its funding from state tax dollars and 48.50 from local taxes. In 2012, the last year I could find figures, that ratio was 29.90 state and a whopping 62.27 local. In addition to having a millage rate twice the average of the other four county districts, we also pay a 1% earned income tax. There is only so much money that the local citizens can and are willing to pay. Reducing the net revenue of the district with CCP money flowing to colleges makes the burden even greater.
A second reason is based on the education provided. If 20% to 25% of your student body is taking one or more classes at a local college, what does that do to the student leadership in your building? Additionally, this exodus of students reduces class sizes and sometimes to the point of having such low enrollment in advanced classes that the district is forced to drop those classes. Fewer class choices leads to more students participating in CCP to get those advanced classes thus the cycle just perpetuates itself.
We should challenge each and every student to their ability level. CCP supposedly does that (but that's another topic). The easy solution to stem the tide of money and brains would be to get as many high school teachers certified to offer CCP classes in the local high school as possible. As I stated earlier, I would provide tuition help so that teachers could do that and would also make extra efforts to hire CCP certified teachers going forward.