States throughout the country are pushing dual-credit programs in which high school students take college courses for both college and high school credit.

Their logic is admirable. Learn higher order concepts. Save time and money toward a degree by earning transferrable college credits while in public school so you don’t accumulate debt.

And yet because there’s no external validation in place to ensure that students are mastering “college-level” learning, the policy is fraught with problems and, worse yet, shaky promises to students that could turn out to be misleading at best.