State Board Approves Flawed Dual Credit Formula

At the Legislature’s behest, the Board of Education Standards imposed further top-down control over local school districts Friday. On a 5–2 vote, the board approved a new rule dictating the credit high schools will place on their students’ transcripts for college courses taken for dual credit. Courses worth 0 to 3 college credits will translate to 0.5 high school credits; courses worth 4 or more college credits will translate to 1 high school credit.

Aberdeen Central School District superintendent and former board member Dr. Becky Guffin pointed out the obvious flaw in that formula:

Guffin noted that, under the compromise, a student passing three one-credit postsecondary courses would earn 1.5 credits toward high school graduation, while a student would get one-half credit toward graduation by passing a three-credit postsecondary course [Bob Mercer, “State Board Adopts Dual-Credit Uniformity Rule,” KELO-TV, 2023.07.07].

Now almost all of the general education courses that high school students are likely to take at our public universities are 3-credit courses, so the quirks that concern Dr. Guffin may not arise often. But the science courses with separate laboratory sections create some weirdness. BIOL 101–Biology Survey is the slack intro to biology for non-bio majors. BIOL 101 is actually transcribed as two separate courses: BIOL 101 classroom section worth 2 credits and BIOL 101L lab section worth 1 credit. It’s a 3-credit course, like most of the other general education courses, but while the board’s new formula will give high schoolers 0.5 credits toward graduation for the intro speech, writing, and history courses, the formula will give bio-slackers 0.5 credits for the BIOL 101 classroom section and another 0.5 credits for the BIOL 101 lab section. Students will thus get one full credit toward graduation for Bio Survey but only a half credit for intro courses in other disciplines.

And come on, board and high schools: is it really that hard to figure a fair per-credit formula? The Regents don’t charge students X amount for courses worth 0–3 credits and 2X for every course worth 4 or more credits; they simply charge high school students $48.33 per credit. What is so hard about saying that a 3-credit course is the equivalent of one high school semester course and thus will count as one-half credit toward high school graduation and that a single college credit is thus worth one-sixth high school credit?

If the repeating decimals on those sixths cause heartburn, then bake into the formula a recognition that high school students who pass college classes deserve a little extra credit: make every college credit worth a quarter-credit toward high school graduation. A standard one-semester 3-credit college course would count as 0.75 credits toward high school graduation, 50% more than a standard one-semester high school course. A 4-credit college course, like any of the foreign language 101 classes or Calculus 1 and 2, would count as 1.0 credit toward high school graduation, two semesters of high school credit earned from one semester of hard college work (which would accurately reflect the college rule of thumb that two years of high school foreign language study is equivalent to one year of college foreign language study).

The board’s decision still needs to clear the Legislature’s Rules Review Committee. Perhaps Dr. Guffin can rally her Aberdeen troops to make the case to legislators that the board needs to rework its dual-credit formula to better reflect the college work our high school students are doing.