The New York Times reported last month on the dispiriting trend tucked into an otherwise cheerful statistic: Of 5.2 million AP tests last year, 1.1 million were taken by students from low-income families. But around 60 percent of those students scored a 1 or a 2 out of 5, results too low for college credit. Worse, the number has been more or less the same for two decades. Meanwhile, the College Board rakes in nearly $500 million every year in fees from AP tests and related materials; about $90 million of that comes from the government, and about $37 million of that goes toward low-income students’ exam fees.
The math is much simpler than anything in the AP calculus curriculum: More than $22 million in taxpayers’ money every year gets spent on test fees for low-income students who emerge with what is essentially a failing grade. That hardly benefits the high-schoolers in question, who leave the courses with neither a college credit nor, presumably, a firm understanding of college-level material — taken together, the point of AP classes. And it doesn’t benefit the federal and state entities funneling funds toward that end. It benefits only the College Board.
The answer is not to abandon the AP system. The highest-achieving students tend to embrace this advanced instruction, so in research on the program’s benefits, correlation and causation get muddled. But there’s reason to believe that APs make a difference, boosting college entry and graduation rates alike and even leading to higher earnings — with one very important caveat. These effects materialize only when kids not only take AP classes but also take AP tests — and do well on them.
How, then, to help low-income and minority students — for whom AP courses could make the most difference — perform well on the tests? Simply ensuring that only students prepared for college-level work take college-level classes won’t do. That strategy would doom students let down in their early years of education to be let down forever. Instead, the solution starts at the beginning of kids’ schooling.
The aim is to identify kids who have the potential to excel as soon as possible — and then give them the support they need to do it. That will require screening for talent, already common practice among the affluent but less so in lower-income public schools. North Carolina and Texas both recently instituted rules by which students who score in the top tier on the state test in a subject are automatically placed in an advanced course for that subject the following term. This is a smart step.
Even more important than spotting talent is nurturing it. The advanced courses students take at earlier stages in their education should be designed to prepare those students for advanced courses in later years. Some of this preparation must focus on content; if a student hasn’t learned algebra by the end of middle school, they’ll never be ready for calculus in high school. Succeeding in college-level courses, however, also requires particular sets of skills — not merely reading comprehension, for example, but organized note-taking.
Programs are already in place in some states to educate schools on preparing students to handle rigorous classes, both in the years leading up to enrollment and during the day-to-day of courses. These are essential, from paid seminars for teachers to continued coaching by specialists, and support ought to be directed especially to low-performing schools. Partnerships with nonprofits can help reduce costs. But the point is this: The investment is worthwhile.
Money is much better spent on setting up students to succeed in advanced classes than on fees for tests they’re unprepared to take. This isn’t about shoveling funding and effort into getting kids good grades on a single exam; indeed, AP, International Baccalaureate and dual enrollment programs that allow teens to take college courses while in high school all deserve to compete on their merits. Instead, the mission should be to equip students with the know-how and confidence to achieve at the college level. Then, hopefully, they can do the same thing in college.
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