The AP recently posted an article about the ACT Test.

The test scores are lower this year, but more are taking the test and qualifying for college.

In the high school adviser meetings we have attended those running the meetings talk about increasing the rigor in classes. It would seem that if the rigor in classes was increasing then test scores would be going up not down.

At these same meetings teachers were complaining about the new areas they had to teach because of state legislative action. These aren't English, math, etc., but they do require school time to cover these legislatively mandated subjects. We heard talk of anti-bullying and aggressive girls as some of the required subjects being taught.
 
Hopefully these subjects will do some good, yet if they are like some of the other ethics type classes (I attended one some years ago) put together by the state. We learned many ways none of us were aware of to swindle potential clients.