securing home directories and using public_html

[Steve Strong]

Sorry if this has already been asked and answered, but I'm a newbie!  
Maybe there's an archive I can search...

I run a lab of fedora 5 clients and a RHEL 4.0 server (that means that 
the version of SELinux running on the server is the same as the version 
running on fedora core 3, right?) in a high school CS department.  I'm 
teaching a unit on web programming using php and mysql.  I've given 
students a world-readable public_html directory and a database, user and 
password.  All works well until I notice students copying code from each 
other's public_html directories.

Is there a way to allow httpd to access these directories and not allow 
users to get to them from their console?

thanks in advance!
steve

-- 
Steve Strong
Math and Computer Science
Washington High School
2205 Forest Dr. SE
Cedar Rapids, IA   52403
http://crwash.org
mailto:strong.s at crwash.org