| HOME SCHOOLING MAY DROP SOME RULES - The State Senate is expected to pass a bill next week which will
remove a provision related to those who home school their children in West Virginia.
The rule says only those home school instructors with at least four years more of educational training than their students can
teach those students. The bill removes that provision.
West Virginia was the only state which has the four-year rule. The home school rules have been the subject of litigation in
Calhoun and other counties in recent years.
Standards, however, have been strengthened for home schoolers. They must meet adequate yearly progress in terms of the
federal "No Child Left Behind" legislation.
PROMISE NUMBERS INCREASING - The number of students applying for PROMISE Scholarships will exceed the
6,000 seniors that applied last year.
About 7,000 students have applied this year; most of them on the internet.
One area the PROMISE effort plans to work on is getting more students to apply in counties with lower college attendance
numbers.
The deadline was January 31.
TUITION CAPS PASS IN LEGISLATURE - Tuition increases for West Virginia residents attending state colleges and
universities would be capped under a bill passed by the House of Delegates.
The bill, which passed on a 76-19 roll call vote Thursday, gives the Higher Education Policy Commission authority to
approve increases of 5 percent if schools showed such increases were necessary, but
community colleges could not go above 3 percent. Medical schools were excluded. .
The average tuition increase during the current academic year was 9.2 percent.
STATE DOING WELL WITH "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND" - West Virginia is doing well in meeting the new standards
of the No Child Left Behind Act, but still has a way to go before it is in full compliance.
The independent Education Commission on the States says West Virginia is in the top 25 for its work on rolling out the
ambitious federal legislation that imposes 40 new standards on public schools.
West Virginia has met 18 of those standards and partially met eight, but still needs to implement 14.
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