You’d call it an unalloyed good thing that in some Louisiana high schools the better students are able to cross-register for classes at some of the state’s colleges and universities and earn course credit before heading off to college. This dual enrollment option serves a number of objectives – piling up those course credits mean the kids can get through college a little quicker, which saves money on the most expensive stage of their educations, it improves the educational offerings to high school students and it might serve to keep some of the brighter minds in Louisiana from leaving the state. If you can earn course credit toward an LSU degree while you’re still in high school, for example, you might be more inclined to matriculate there rather than Ole Miss or Texas Tech.

So we found it a bit peculiar when, all of a sudden, there was an article yesterday in the left-wing Baton Rouge Advocate in which the dual enrollment program came under attack.

(No, we’re not linking to Advocate articles. The Advocate refuses to link to The Hayride, so we’re returning the favor).

The ACT requirement is the key barrier, and an unfair one, to Black students enrolling in high school classes for college credit, education officials said Tuesday.

Black students make up 43% of Louisiana’s public school population but only 27% of those taking classes for both high school and college credit, which is called dual enrollment.

“This is not the fault of students,” said Jonathan Davis, an education researcher “It is a policy failure.”

Davis is a a senior research associate with The Education Trust, a non-profit group that works to narrow the opportunity gap between students of color and others.

It turns out that to qualify for the state’s dual enrollment program you’ve got to have a 2.5 grade point average and a composite score of 19 on your ACT, plus no worse than an 18 in the English section of the ACT.

That isn’t what you would call an overly restrictive requirement. If you can’t make a 2.5 GPA and a 19 on the ACT, the chances of your graduating college are, frankly, not that good. It’s probably not worth your time pursuing a college degree, at least not at that stage of your life. What you need is a marketable skill you can make a living with.

In other words, trade or vo-tech school is really your best option. Trying to go to a four-year college will too likely result in heartbreak, failure and debt you’re going to struggle to pay off if you can’t do better than a 2.5 and a 19.

We’re not saying you can’t go to college if that’s your academic profile. What we’re saying is you’re probably going to struggle, and college is big-time expensive, and obtaining a trade skill will generally mean you earn more money, sooner, than if you get some nondescript degree from a four-year school which puts you in five-figure, or even six-figure, debt to obtain.

So nobody is doing you a favor if you have a 17 on your ACT and they’re fighting to send you to a four-year college. They’re fighting for their agenda, not yours.

It so happens that white kids in Louisiana average a 20.5 on the ACT, while black kids average a 16.5. And that’s the basis for these people screaming that the dual enrollment program is racist for requiring a 19.

Not that the 16.5 ACT average for black kids in Louisiana is scandalous and practically criminal and the people responsible for miseducating these kids all the way up the line, particularly involving giving social promotions to kids who can’t even read rather than actually teaching them something in these government schools taxpayers are forking over $10,000, $12,000 or even $15,000 per student per year to fund. No. The dual enrollment program is racist because its standards are too high.

It requires a 19 on the ACT and its standards are too high.

And also, black people are too stupid to do any better than 16.5 on the average. That’s the message being given. Not that the 16.5 number is terrible and it needs to be improved, and that black people are human beings like anybody else capable of bettering their station with some help and innovation and encouragement. Nope. What is will forever be, and everything is racist, so we just accept the 16.5 and dumb it down accordingly.

What’s the national average on the ACT? It’s 20.6. Louisiana’s dual enrollment requirement is 1.6 points below the national average. And that’s too high.

Some 56 percent of white kids in public schools can’t meet the dual enrollment requirement. Among black kids it’s 85 percent.

What this tells you is that public schools in Louisiana don’t prepare their typical students for college. But we already knew those schools were a disaster. The few kids they don’t ruin, you’d like to think we would want to move them along so they might learn enough to make something of themselves. We have to train doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, military leaders and captains of industry somewhere, right?

Nope. The standards must be lowered until they don’t mean a damn thing. Because that’s how the Left likes education in Louisiana.

Let’s talk about this outfit pushing this insanity, shall we?

Ever heard of The Education Trust? No? Well, they aren’t all that important, but there’s a whole lot of money flowing through that place to put out advocacy for “high academic achievement of all students– particularly those of color or living in poverty.”

Which sounds pretty good. Except calling a dual enrollment standard requiring an ACT score 1.6 points below the national average isn’t really pushing for “high academic achievement,” is it?

And who funds these people? This will tell you who The Education Trust really is.