It's intended to be a nationwide study. Sort of like what other countries do. Only people like the OK lawmaker haven't a clue.
Among the problems with our educational system is that there are no national standards. other than the AP exams.
Here's a story about my oldest son and his SAT subject exams. Just in case you don't already know, they are graded 200-800. A 200 means you showed up at the testing place, and 800 is a perfect score. The subject exams are in a specific subject area I hope that's obvious.
Okay, you've got that. Freshman year of high school, my son took biology, took the biology subject test. When the test scores arrive he had a 770 ( a VERY GOOD score for those of you who don't already know). I told him he needed to call his biology teacher, tell her his score, and tell her thank you for what she'd taught him. Yes, he worked hard, but if she hadn't taught him a great deal, he wouldn't have done so well. He called her. All was good.
Sophomore year he took chemistry. Another great teacher. My son took the SAT chemistry exam got a 780. I made him call the teacher and tell him thank you. Again, my son worked hard, but the chemistry teacher was also wonderful.
Junior year, physics. Son seemed to do well in class, took the SAT subject exam. When the scores came in, he had an 800. a perfect score Son said, "Oh. There was one question I wasn't sure of. I guess I got it right."
I recognize that my son is somewhat different from many others. That does not obviate the point that AP exams or the SAT subject exams are excellent national exams in the subjects. Those are the only exams which actually match the students up against a verifiable objective standard. We are the only country with few such standards. Is it any wonder we do so poorly on competitive international exams?
The APs (which my son also did well on) are a similar measure. They really are a national exam, and a student who does well on one will do well in college. A student who does poorly probably won't do as well in college. However, and this is very important, I've seen research that indicates a student who takes an AP course and takes the exam but does poorly on the exam, will still do better in college than a student who never took an AP class of any kind. The point is, AP classes are good. For what it's worth, I went to high school when AP classes weren't available, and I did perfectly well in college. So AP classes, while nice, aren't the only way to measure potential college success.
Overall we have an amazingly wonderful college system in this country. It starts with the junior colleges, and includes all the state colleges/universities and goes on to the most prestigious and outstanding universities, mostly the Ivy League schools, but includes several other amazing and wonderful schools.
One of the things I love about this country is that we have an incredible system of higher education. You don't have to be in the elite to participate. Okay, we all understand that if you just barely graduated from Public School in Middle America you probably won't get admitted to Harvard or MIT, but with all due respect (which they deserve) to those schools, and to all the very prestigious schools in this country, you can do very well if you start out at your local junior college and then transfer to the University of Your State. There is more than one path to success, academically. Especially academically.
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