NYS Advocates for More Diversity in Advanced Placement Courses
Douglas Johnston
New York State is urging its school districts to make high level courses more available to minority students, such as African-Americans and Hispanics, to help promote education equality.
“I am in favor or more rigorous coursework being more inclusive,” said Kirk Reinhardt, Saugerties Central School District SuperIntendent. “This will open more pathways to college and the rigor will better prepare students for the next level of learning.”
Advanced Placement courses are often thought of as a head-start for students that are college bound. The unfortunate reality of the situation is that most students that are minorities and or from low-income families are less exposed to these opportunities that other students are privy to.
The Education Department recently sent out guidelines to the states’ school districts to help increase the number of students that have access to these advanced classes. This includes AP and International Baccalaureate (IB) classes. Reinhardt’s philosophy when it comes to making these courses more known to a wider range of students include “multiple measures for entrance into AP classes, longer school day and year when necessary to close gaps, more consistent curriculum from Kindergarten [all the way through] eigth grade.”
Placing students in advanced courses shouldn’t just be a point of emphasis at the high school level. The younger we get our students involved in a higher level of learning the better. There must be broader pathways for students to enter AP courses. “[We need to] create rigorous curricula with multiple benchmarks that allow younger students to show what they know and build a culture where there is an expectation that all students can learn at a high level,” said Reinhardt. Contrary to popular belief the limited funding isnt main reason that middle school students don’t have that many higher level courses. “The biggest limit at middle school is state required courses their schedules are pretty full,” Reinhardt said.
Although some schools such as White Plains High School have already eliminated the application process for AP courses, most schools have not. One of those being Saugerties High School. “There are grade cutoffs to get in,” Reinhardt said. Since White Plains High School has gotten rid of the application process both the number of students and diversity has increased in higher level courses.
One of the many things that Saugerties High School does to help all of their students reach the next level of education is to have programs and partnerships with colleges including State University of New York: Albany and Ulster. The school district offers 15 different classes that are either AP and IB courses or college credit.
Advanced Placement courses can range from $15 to 20 thousand depending on the materials and if the class is in lieu of another class. An example class would be AP United States History, students in that class would still need to take a similar course.
