Lowering the standards

Earlier this year, those great bastions known as the Tennessee General Assembly decided that it's OK if your city or county mayor and their boards didn't graduate from high school.

Now they're looking at lowering -- yes, lowering -- the GPA required for the state's lottery scholarships.

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/state/article/0,1406,KNS_348_5499206,00.html

Right now, it takes a 3.0 GPA -- a B -- to qualify for the what will be $4,000-a-year gifts under Gov. Bredesen's education plan. To keep it, they must sustain a 2.75 GPA the first year of college and a 3.0 subsequent years.

The plan, which, sadly, has the support of Bredesen, is to lower the GPA to 2.75 for those later college years.

We're giving these kids free money, folks. Isn't the least they can do is work for it?

Things happen, and I understand that. But wouldn't it be better to impose a probationary semester to give students a chance to improve?

Lowering the standards is one of the factors putting us behind in education. It's simply not acceptable, in my opinion, to drop the requirements.

What kind of message does that send to young people? Oh, yeah -- I forgot. This legislature doesn't CARE about the impression their actions make on the state's youth. Silly me.