At Washington High in Atlanta -- ranked 301st of 339 high schools in Georgia -- 64 percent of graduates qualify for HOPPE scholarships. Its SAT scores are 229 points below the state average of 984.

What's happening here? A lot of Georgians are being misled.

The good news about HOPE's financial difficulties is the promise it holds to alert students, parents and taxpayers that something's broken. It's basically dishonest to say to parents: "We have provided your child an education and we certify that he is not only capable of performing college-level work, but should be identified as one of this system's scholars."

It's dishonest, too, because it says to students: "The effort you have expended in high school is sufficient to excel."

That's not true in life or in college. The average high school student, by one study, devotes no more time to school instruction, homework and related activities -- about 18-22 hours per week -- than to watching television, 19.6 hours.

It's dishonest, too, because students and parents are not told that the curriculum may vary system to system, and that the course material covered may be superficial. Many systems, I suspect, give B's to placate parents and communities. Good grades satisfy, lulling parents into believing that while other children may be falling behind, their B-or-better child has the education grounding to be doctors and lawyers and such.

The good news of HOPE is that parents and taxpayers now know the truth.

What to do?

An interim step would be to tie HOPE scholarships to the SAT, though setting a 1000 minimum would disqualify about two-thirds of blacks and one-third of whites. The General Assembly probably lacks the will to take that step, even to phase in a SAT standard.

Clearly, though, some change is needed that will differentiate between the slackers and the achievers. When everybody -- or, more precisely, 56 percent of Georgia's high school graduates -- gets a HOPE scholarship, it's a virtual entitlement. There's no honor, no special distinction that identifies its holder as exceptional academically.

An end-of-course exam tied to a state-created syllabus is the key. Then parents and students should know that students are getting uniform instruction across Georgia. If they aren't, the end-of-course exam will reveal it -- in time to fix either instruction or the curriculum before another class is lost. Systems then won't be able to mislead. But a full slate of end-of-course tests is six years away.

Even if politicians reject tying HOPE to grade-point averages and a SAT minimum, the plan now should be to tie HOPE to end-of-course tests, with a differentiated scholarship based on how well students perform.

HOPE's financial problems are immediate. But even as the immediate ones are fixed, the long-term problems persist.

The lottery has saturated its market, and unless more aggressive advertising is used, or unless new forms of gambling (like casinos, video poker or horse racing) are introduced, it's not likely to grow. The population will and, while the HOPE study commission has not projected beyond 2009, all fixes currently proposed could be made and the program would be broke again in 20 years. The option then would be to raise taxes or cut benefits.

We don't need any more gambling. The lottery, in fact, shouldn't be advertising at all in ways that tempt Georgians to socially undesirable behavior. And it's foolish to consider raising taxes for an entitlement program that mainly goes to people who would go to college anyway.

Instead we should use this opportunity to set meaningful standards to make HOPE an honest scholarship program.