President Bush calls it "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

Some of Georgia's Democratic leaders, embracing that soft bigotry, declared themselves opposed to efforts to bring truth-in-packaging to a HOPE scholarship program that is presumably based on merit. As now structured, it invites grade inflation, gamesmanship and abuse.

Georgians, in letters to this newspaper, express keen interest in HOPE and are highly supportive of efforts to establish meaningful standards. Many of the responses from students, parents and educators are thoughtful, suggesting that the HOPE scholarship joint study commission can debate necessary changes to a sacred cow rationally and intelligently.

The reasonable standard would be an honest B grade-point average and a 1000 SAT. At present, grade-inflated and grade-dropping B averages qualify 56 percent of Georgia's high school graduates for merit-based scholarships.

We're cultivating in students the same beat-the-system behaviors that we unintentionally cultivated in criminals before truth-in-sentencing. If we call them scholars and provide merit-based rewards for academic achievement, the public should have some reasonable assurance that the system has integrity. The SAT would serve, until end-of-course tests are perfected, to restore integrity.

Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, hopping aboard the excuse express, has declared himself the engineer who will drive opposition to performance standards. "I am certainly going to ask the General Assembly to oppose tying the HOPE scholarship to . . . the SAT," Taylor told Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter James Salzer. "There are any number of A students who don't test well. This is the wrong approach to the challenges we face."

Ah, the old don't-test-well shoe. Can the unequal-spending excuse be far behind? And cultural differences in SAT questions? You pick 'em. Excuses, ad infinitum.

If this model for public education is not working, we need to change it -- unless, of course, we are stuck in excuses and soft bigotry. It's true that some students may not test well, but a lot of them don't test well because they don't know the material. The first clue that they're getting self-esteem grades or second-rate instruction or light curriculum comes with standardized tests. Adding the SAT to HOPE would establish a necessary baseline statewide.

It's true, too, that requiring a 1000 SAT would disproportionately affect blacks. Some reasonable phase-in of no more than four years may be warranted. But it is time to assess the racial gap in college admissions eligibility honestly.

For decades, the explanations have been discrimination and disproportionate spending on local schools. For students who reach the job or admissions interview academically unprepared, whether discrimination exists is the least of their problems. Spending has long since ceased to provide adequate explanation, either. Every system in Georgia has adequate financial resources to do its job. More money has not translated into better results.

The problem is that we have a school structure built for another era, or at least another culture. All families, but especially black families, are under strain. Black men have been written out of the family story; 70 percent of their children are born to single females. Only a third of adults are married. It's not a formula that bodes well for the next generation.

The solution is not to abandon academic standards or to engage in the soft bigotry. The solution is to examine the hand education has been dealt and design a learning environment that, after 12 years of schooling, produces students who can meet the standard.

That solution may be charter schools with longer school days, uniforms, all-male instructors, character development and evening or weekend classes. Maybe it's tutors, though tutors in the absence of structure and values are of little value.

Don't drop standards. Set them and find ways to change behaviors so that students meet them.