Area school administrators disagree with A+ task force recommendation

To its supporters, and there are many in Missouri public education, the state's A+ Scholarship Program is aptly named.

Thousands of high school graduates from more than 300 Missouri schools have gone on to college -- including many students who might not otherwise have had access to post-secondary education -- thanks to the scholarship program, which covers tuition costs of students enrolled at two-year community or technical colleges in Missouri.

But an executive task force charged with putting together recommended changes to A+ is getting mixed grades from school administrators concerned that more stringent math requirements could limit participation, diminishing the intent of the program.

The panel, led by Mike Nietzel, education adviser to Gov. Jay Nixon, was convened in mid-September and announced its first round of revisions Oct. 18. The public will have an opportunity to comment on the administrative rule changes in the coming weeks.

The most controversial point was the initial recommendation requiring program participants to pass the algebra II end-of-course examination. That requirement met with steep opposition from school boards and administrators who argued the change would drastically limit the number of A+ scholarship recipients.

After hearing the outpouring of criticism, the task force revised several of its recommendations. The group now recommends that students pass or are proficient in algebra I.

Nietzel said boosting the math requirement is important because more than half of A+ students have to take remedial courses in community college, the lion's share of those in basic math.

"A+ has provided access to a college education, but it has not been a program that has been concerned about the preparation of students," said Nietzel, former president of Missouri State University. "They not only have to have access but success when they get there."

Nietzel said the resistance to the algebra requirement has much to do with the newness of the end-of-course exams. But the adviser said it's not unreasonable for taxpayers footing the bill for a $22 million scholarship program to expect that students are proficient in freshman-level algebra.

More than 115,000 students have qualified for the A+ financial aid incentive since the program's inception in 1993. Cape Girardeau Central High School was one of the first to earn an A+ school designation in a program that now includes more than 300 schools statewide. About 10,000 students are involved in the program this year, according to the Missouri Department of Higher Education, which administers the scholarships.

Mike Cowan, principal of Central High School, is opposed to the algebra requirement, a mandate he said he believes would go against the spirit of the A+ program.

"The intent of the program was to be more inclusive, to provide a greater opportunity for a number of kids to have a two-year college experience," Cowan said. "This would exclude some of the people in the program it was originally designed to include, and I regret that greatly."

Becky Riney, coordinator of the Jackson High School's A+ program, said the stricter math requirement would be too hard for some of the students.

"You're going to lose a lot of these children," she said. "If they could pass [algebra II], they probably would be going to a four-year school to begin with."

A+ does not pay for tuition at Missouri's universities.

Jackson High School is just beginning to see the fruits of its A+ school designation, after a three-year process of earning the distinction. Last year's seniors were the first to take advantage of the scholarship, with 24 completing the program. This year, there are 73 applicants in the senior class, 62 juniors and 52 sophomores.

At Central, the class of 2010 had 25 confirmed A+ graduates, with nearly 100 students signed up this school year, Cowan said.

Cowan said the program hasn't had as many success stories as the district would like because of a lack of community college presence in the immediate Cape Girardeau area. That has changed with the creation of the Cape Girardeau Partnership for Higher Education Center, a collaboration of Southeast Missouri State University, Three Rivers Community College and Mineral Area College that brought community college education to Cape Girardeau for the first time this semester.

"Now I think because of the new community college partnership ... we have a larger freshman enrollment" in the A+ program, Cowan said.

While it may not include the most academically gifted in its ranks, advocates said the A+ program is building better citizens and equipping them with the tools to succeed. Program participants must graduate high school with a minimum 2.5 grade point average, have an overall high school attendance rate of at least 95 percent, perform 50 hours of district-supervised, unpaid tutoring or mentoring, and maintain a record of good citizenship and avoid using drugs or alcohol.

The A+ Schools Program was created by the Outstanding Schools Act of 1993, an incentive for improving Missouri's high schools. The idea was to lower dropout rates, raise academic expectations and provide career pathways. The program's mission statement is to ensure that all students who graduate from Missouri high schools are well prepared to pursue advanced education and employment.

The task force recommendations would add job shadowing activities to tutoring/mentoring requirement. Among the other recommendations, A+ would no longer pay for courses that are dropped, and reimbursement would be capped at 105 percent of cost of the credit hours.

Awards would be prioritized by student income levels, should funding be reduced. That is a possibility as the Missouri Legislature faces a $700 million budget shortfall next year.

"I think it's a very important program to promoting access to higher education in Missouri, and I hope it is one that continues to receive strong support in Jefferson City," Nietzel said.

mkittle@semissourian.com

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