Learning in the Fast Lane looks at an effort to expand Advanced Placement opportunities to low-income and minority students in Montgomery County, Maryland.
The large district includes wealthy, mostly white and Asian communities with high-achieving students, and poorer towns with “lots of black and brown faces, including many immigrant families,” write Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Andrew E. Scanlan.
Despite efforts to raise achievement in lower-income areas, the county has not focused on the “excellence gap,” they write. The smartest kids in poorer schools had little access to high-level classes.
Superintendent Jack Smith enlisted Seattle-based Equal Opportunity Schools to identify low-income and minority students with the potential to succeed in AP (and International Baccalaureate) courses and to persuade schools to prepare them for the opportunity.
Smith sees the need to change mindsets, Finn and Scanlan write. That means “getting kids to believe they belong in such classes, getting teachers to believe that more different kinds of kids can succeed there, and persuading the entire school team that it’s their responsibility to ensure that these young people make it.”
Here’s their look at AP expansion in New York City. More black and Hispanic students are taking AP exams; pass rates are down. However, teachers believe the AP experience benefits students even if they don’t do well enough to earn college credit.