Parent Advocates
Search All  
The goal of ParentAdvocates.org
is to put tax dollar expenditures and other monies used or spent by our federal, state and/or city governments before your eyes and in your hands.

Through our website, you can learn your rights as a taxpayer and parent as well as to which programs, monies and more you may be entitled...and why you may not be able to exercise these rights.

Mission Statement

Click this button to share this site...


Bookmark and Share











Who We Are »
Betsy Combier

Help Us to Continue to Help Others »
Email: betsy.combier@gmail.com

 
The E-Accountability Foundation announces the

'A for Accountability' Award

to those who are willing to whistleblow unjust, misleading, or false actions and claims of the politico-educational complex in order to bring about educational reform in favor of children of all races, intellectual ability and economic status. They ask questions that need to be asked, such as "where is the money?" and "Why does it have to be this way?" and they never give up. These people have withstood adversity and have held those who seem not to believe in honesty, integrity and compassion accountable for their actions. The winners of our "A" work to expose wrong-doing not for themselves, but for others - total strangers - for the "Greater Good"of the community and, by their actions, exemplify courage and self-less passion. They are parent advocates. We salute you.

Winners of the "A":

Johnnie Mae Allen
David Possner
Dee Alpert
Aaron Carr
Harris Lirtzman
Hipolito Colon
Larry Fisher
The Giraffe Project and Giraffe Heroes' Program
Jimmy Kilpatrick and George Scott
Zach Kopplin
Matthew LaClair
Wangari Maathai
Erich Martel
Steve Orel, in memoriam, Interversity, and The World of Opportunity
Marla Ruzicka, in Memoriam
Nancy Swan
Bob Witanek
Peyton Wolcott
[ More Details » ]
 
Pulling a More Diverse Group of Achievers Into the Advanced Placement Pool
Every year, more than 600,000 academically promising high school students — most of them poor, Latino or black — fail to enroll in Advanced Placement courses, often viewed as head starts for the college-bound. Some of them do not know about these courses, which offer an accelerated curriculum and can lead to college credit. Others assume they will be too difficult. But many are held back by entrenched perceptions among administrators and teachers, whose referrals are often required for enrollment, about who belongs in what has long served as an elite preserve within public schools.
          
Pulling a More Diverse Group of Achievers Into the Advanced Placement Pool
By MOTOKO RICH, NY TIMES
November 26, 2013

ORLANDO, Fla. — Every year, more than 600,000 academically promising high school students — most of them poor, Latino or black — fail to enroll in Advanced Placement courses, often viewed as head starts for the college-bound.

Some of them do not know about these courses, which offer an accelerated curriculum and can lead to college credit. Others assume they will be too difficult. But many are held back by entrenched perceptions among administrators and teachers, whose referrals are often required for enrollment, about who belongs in what has long served as an elite preserve within public schools.

“Many teachers don’t truly believe that these programs are for all kids or that students of color or low-income kids can succeed in these classes,” said Christina Theokas, director of research at the Education Trust, a nonprofit group. Ms. Theokas said that if those underrepresented students had taken A.P. courses at the same rate as their white and more affluent peers in 2010, there would have been about 614,500 more students in those classes.

In an effort to overcome those obstacles, an increasing number of school districts, including Boston, Cincinnati and Washington, have recently begun initiatives to expand Advanced Placement course offerings and enroll more black and Hispanic students, children from low-income families and those who aspire to be the first in their generation to go to college. In the spring, lawmakers in Washington State passed legislation encouraging all districts to enroll in advanced courses any student who meets a minimum threshold on state standardized tests or the Preliminary SAT exam.

While some critics say A.P. classes are little more than another round of test prep, supporters say they can foster a culture of learning. Humberto Fuentes, a senior here at Freedom High School taking his first A.P. classes, in English literature and economics, said they were the first time he had been around peers who enjoyed school.

“In regular classes, people are trying to distract you with music videos or saying, ‘Hey, look at this cat playing a piano’ on their phones,” said Humberto, 17, who emigrated with his parents from Ecuador when he was an infant and hopes to be the first in his family to attend college. “Whereas in an A.P. class, they will show you something from the text and say, ‘Hey, this is fun.’ ”

Expanding access to the advanced classes can require far more of teachers. “If A.P. courses are going to be a successful experience for a variety of students,” said Trevor Packer, the head of the Advanced Placement program at the College Board, the nonprofit organization that administers the exams, “A.P. teaching can’t rely on the ‘sage on the stage’ model that characterized and continues to characterize some of A.P. teaching today.”

At Freedom High School, teachers offer tutoring at lunchtime, after school and on Saturdays. Starting this year, their district, Orange County Public Schools, allocated $12,000 to $14,000 to each high school to pay for extra instructional time for A.P. students. Many students are also enrolled in study review classes sponsored by Advancement Via Individual Determination, a nonprofit group that works to help prepare disadvantaged students for college.

Cashira Chery, a lanky 14-year-old whose mother works as a hotel housekeeper, is one of the new A.P. students. In middle school, she was a straight-A student who scored well on standardized tests, and her guidance counselor at Freedom High registered her for two Advanced Placement courses, biology and geography.

Sometimes, Cashira said, she asks classmates to “dumb down” material. But she is determined to stick with the courses, which she sees as prerequisites to her plans to pursue a career as a pediatrician or an engineer.

“It’s very important to finish college,” said Cashira, who is the daughter of Haitian immigrants. “Not finishing college has gotten my mom into her job.”

As A.P. classes across the country have opened to a more diverse group of students, some teachers and parents worry that instructors will be forced to water down the curriculum, while some educational experts say there is little conclusive evidence that students who take such courses perform better in college.

In Orlando, however, school officials are convinced that the courses will improve their students’ chances in college. Three years ago, the district dropped its requirement of teacher recommendations for A.P. classes, and schools began mining data from Preliminary SAT exams more intensively to find students with the aptitude for more difficult courses.

“We wanted to find the students who might be flying under the radar,” said Barbara Jenkins, superintendent of Orange County Public Schools, the country’s 10th-largest school district, where about half the black and Latino students with qualifying test scores take A.P. classes.

At Freedom High, a campus of 3,240 students, the administration began a push to increase A.P. enrollment five years ago, taking advantage of state bonuses for teachers whose students pass A.P. courses. Since 2009, the number of students taking the advanced courses at Freedom has nearly tripled, with the school offering 150 sections in 30 subjects, including macroeconomics, computer science and Mandarin.

This year, close to half the students in A.P. classes are Latino, 12 percent are black, and nearly half are eligible for free or reduced lunches. Schoolwide, 70 percent of students are Hispanic, 6 percent are black, and more than two-thirds qualify for lunch aid.

At the same time, passing rates on A.P. exams have edged up. In 2009, 49 percent of the Freedom students who took one received a passing score of 3 or higher. whereas last year, the rate was 51 percent.

Nationwide, the class of 2012 took 3.15 million A.P. exams, more than double the number a decade earlier, and 57 percent were passing scores. That rate was four percentage points lower than in 2002. When those additional 1.85 million tests were taken, the number of passing scores rose by more than one million from a decade earlier.

Some parents around the country have resisted the expansion of A.P., saying classes are filling with students who cannot manage the work. And pass rates remain low: Last spring, 25 percent of African-Americans and 32 percent of Hispanics who took an A.P. English exam received a passing score; the rates in the social sciences were 30 percent and 35 percent. About two-thirds of white students who took an exam in English or a social science received a passing score.

Some educational experts are skeptical that pushing more children into A.P. classes will help them. In research that has shown positive links between students who score a 3 or higher and their college performance, it is difficult to disentangle the factors, said Kristin Klopfenstein, the executive director of the Education Innovation Institute at the University of Northern Colorado.

“The things that cause kids to enroll in A.P. classes and do well in them are the same things that cause them to go to college and succeed in college,” Dr. Klopfenstein said. “Supportive families, a college-going culture at home, a high school with a college-going culture.”

Some teachers say students who come from more educated backgrounds can help the new A.P. students. During an advanced calculus class at Freedom High one morning, the teacher, Amanda Kraemer, circulated among student groups of four working together to solve quadratic equations. Most of them, she said, did not have college-educated parents. But peer grouping, she said, “gets kids who come in with a lot of skills to solidify them by helping other students.”

Ms. Kraemer’s approach seems to work: Last spring, more than 90 percent of her students received a passing score on the most rigorous A.P. calculus exam.

 
© 2003 The E-Accountability Foundation