It's not law — not yet — but Colorado ASCENT, the bipartisan legislation sponsored by state senator Suzanne Williams and representatives Mike Merrifield and Tom Massey, and heartily endorsed by Governor Bill Ritter, is well on its way to becoming the most welcome new law this legislative session. It would establish a statewide concurrent-enrollment plan that gives students an opportunity to earn a college associate's degree while finishing high school. It will also replace several different, and often debated, plans in school districts around the state with a single, uniform program. Let's just hope the kids don't get too much education; they might start questioning how such a bipartisan group ever came up with such a wacky name. For the record, ASCENT stands for Accelerating Students through Concurrent ENrollmenT.