Carol’s Summary:

New research on the value of Advanced Placement programs, offered by College Board in a soon-to-be-released book by Harvard Education Press, AP: A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program, shows mixed results:

Claim: The program helps students save money and graduate on time. This would also encourage more students to go to college.
Counter: According to the Harvard research, this is generally found to have no validity.

Claim: Students in AP classes benefit from smaller class sizes and the school’s best teachers.
Counter: These same acts mean that the rest of a school’s students have larger classes and less time with the best teachers.

The bottom line is that if students don’t build their developmental skills as they move through each grade level, then we are setting them up for failure. It is better to have average students who learn to become strong students even if they are not taking AP courses. Committing to study three hours or more a night, reading for pleasure rather than watching television, and working with tutors, can set them up far more for college success than being in AP courses in which their skills and habits don’t match the content.

When considering AP courses for your child, asking the right questions can help parents decide if an AP course is worth it. Is this course something your son or daughter intends to major in during college? If your child doesn’t know what career path they want to pursue, then taking AP classes may be premature. If they do know, then taking AP classes that connect to these interests makes sense. For instance, if a student wants to become a pharmacist, taking AP history could minimize where she really needs to focus her efforts: on AP chemistry.

Stress is another factor to consider. On a scale from 1-5 (1=rarely stressed and 5=frequently stressed), how healthy is your child at managing stress? If your child is a stress monster, then stacking irrelevant AP classes (ones they don’t intend to pursue for a college major) onto an already demanding schedule could prove counter-productive and lead to burnout. In addition to asking the above questions, here are questions parents can ask the school:

1. How long has this course been taught in this school and by this teacher?
2. What is the teacher’s pass rate? Of those who passed, how many received a 4 or 5 on the test?
3. Are the teacher’s grades for the course related, in any way, to anticipated performance on the AP test?

For more good questions to evaluate the worth of an AP course visit: http://greatcollegeadvice.com/how-good-are-advanced-placement-ap-courses-are-they-worth-taking/

ARTICLE:

USA Today
Advanced Placement: Good for top students, oversold to others?
By Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed
March 30, 2010

The Advanced Placement program is becoming more and more popular, with 25% of high school graduates taking at least one AP examination, elite colleges expecting to see applicants’ transcripts full of the courses, and politicians demanding that more and more high schools offer them. The program has become “the juggernaut of American high school education,” according to the introduction to a new book, AP: A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program.

The book, about to be released by Harvard Education Press, is the result of a 2007 conference at Harvard University that brought together leading education researchers to consider the evidence about AP. Despite the immense popularity of the program, the research evidence on its value is minimal, the book argues. The College Board, the program’s sponsor, publishes or promotes its own research (favoring the program) and promotes “glowing accounts” of AP. But is this really the consensus?

To view this entire article visit www.usatoday.com

Carol’s summary:
Today, 1 in 5 public school students is Hispanic, and “the percentage of Hispanic students who graduate from college in six years or less continues to lag behind that of white students, according to a new study by the American Enterprise Institute of graduation figures at more than 600 colleges,” cited in today’s New York Times. A similar study released in September of 2008, by the Pew Hispanic Center (PHC) and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, reports that “only 16 percent of Latino high school graduates earned a bachelor’s degree by age 29, compared with 37 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 21 percent of African-Americans.” By 2050, there will be more Hispanic children in U.S. public schools than non-Hispanic white children, as projected by the PHC report.

The study also reports that Latino students are less likely to have college-educated parents and more likely to live in poverty than white students. “Given the changing demographics of the United States,” the researchers write, “this target cannot be achieved without increasing the rate at which Hispanic students obtain a college degree.” This means educators have an inherent responsibility to direct and prepare more Latinos for college and high-skill jobs—a task that will take on even more urgency if the U.S. is to remain a force in a global economy. Unless schools adopt student success and transition programs as part of their core curriculum, a persistent achievement gap will continue to exist between minority and white students.

LifeBound’s programs for students are designed to boost academic, emotional and social intelligence for all learners, and our programs for parents support them in their role to help their children achieve school, career and life success. For more information about our parent programs, or to receive a review copy of our Spanish version of STUDY SKILLS FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS, or any of our books, call our national office toll free at 1.877.737.8510 or email contact@lifebound.com.

As the number of Latino students nationwide continues to swell, how can we best prepare them for college and career success?

How can we help Latina students to have a voice and the initiative they need to advocate for resources and opportunities?

How can we help Latino young men make wise choices about friends as well as set healthy boundaries so that they avoid gang activity and other things that can dissuade them from pursuing a strong set of goals for education and career?

ARTICLE
New York Times
by Jacques Steinberg
Mrch 17, 2010

The percentage of Hispanic students who graduate from college in six years or less continues to lag behind that of white students, according to a new study of graduation figures at more than 600 colleges.
In the study, the American Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit research organization, examined graduation rates for students who entered college in 1999, 2000 and 2001, and found that 51 percent of those identified as Hispanic earned bachelor’s degrees in six years or less, compared with 59 percent of white students.
The researchers also found that Hispanic students trailed their white peers no matter how selective the colleges’ admissions processes.
For example, at what the researchers considered the nation’s most competitive colleges — as a yardstick, they aggregated institutions using the same six categories as a popular guidebook, Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges — the institute calculated that nearly 83 percent of Hispanic students graduated, compared with 89 percent of white students. Among colleges identified as “less competitive,” the graduation rate for Hispanic students was 33.5 percent, compared with 40.5 percent for whites.

The percentage of Hispanic students who graduate from college in six years or less continues to lag behind that of white students, according to a new study of graduation figures at more than 600 colleges.
In the study, the American Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit research organization, examined graduation rates for students who entered college in 1999, 2000 and 2001, and found that 51 percent of those identified as Hispanic earned bachelor’s degrees in six years or less, compared with 59 percent of white students.
The researchers also found that Hispanic students trailed their white peers no matter how selective the colleges’ admissions processes.

For example, at what the researchers considered the nation’s most competitive colleges — as a yardstick, they aggregated institutions using the same six categories as a popular guidebook, Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges — the institute calculated that nearly 83 percent of Hispanic students graduated, compared with 89 percent of white students. Among colleges identified as “less competitive,” the graduation rate for Hispanic students was 33.5 percent, compared with 40.5 percent for whites.

To view entire article visit
http://nyti.ms/cqDYIs