Education Week - April 13, 2016 - 7

San Diego Strives to Close Gap in Access to Advanced Courses
By Denisa R. Superville
When Vincent Mays arrived as the
new principal of Serra High School
in San Diego in 2014, he was struck
by the low number of students of
color in Advanced Placement classes.
"It seemed odd, because the majority of my population is Hispanic,"
said Mays.
When he asked Hispanic and African-American students why they
were not enrolled in AP courses even
when they earned A's and B's in others, some told Mays they didn't know
they could sign up for AP.
The San Diego district is working
to change that pattern by instituting
a districtwide expansion of both Advanced Placement and International
Baccalaureate enrollment among its
low-income students and students of
color by the start of the 2016-17 school
year. It has identified 1,891 low-income students and students of color
who it believes are capable of taking
and passing AP and IB courses. Educators are now working to enroll them.

Expanding Opportunity
If San Diego is successful, it will become the largest district to close the
gaps between low-income students
and students of color and middle- and
high-income white and Asian students
in AP and IB programs, according to
Cindy Marten, the superintendent,
and Equal Opportunity Schools, the
Seattle-based organization that is
partnering with San Diego to eliminate the so-called "opportunity gap."
San Diego's AP and IB expansion
is a major plank in a pledge it signed
in 2014-along with the majority of
big-city districts that make up the
Council of the Great City Schools-to
take concrete steps to increase opportunities for African-American, Latino,
and Native American boys. The AP
and IB push is also one component
of a districtwide initiative to expose
all students to a rigorous curriculum and increase the value of a high
school diploma, Marten said.
Across the country, there are approximately 640,000 high school stuTjuan Holmes,
right, focuses on
his work in Gualter
Moura's AP
Calculus class at
Mission Bay High
School in San
Diego. The district
aims to enroll
more low-income
students and
students of color
in Advanced
Placement and
International
Baccalaureate
courses.

dents who are capable of taking AP
and IB classes but are not enrolled
in them, and fewer than 1 percent of
schools have AP and IB enrollments
that reflect their schools' diversity,
said Reid Saaris, the executive director and founder of Equal Opportunity
Schools. The organization has teamed
up with dozens of school systems in
recent years to expand access to AP
and IB classes at the same time that
many districts are working to strip
away barriers for students, including
by picking up the cost of AP exams.

'Missing' Students
The organization helps districts
identify "missing" students by digging
into school-level data and surveying
staff and students about barriers and
access. It prepares profiles on each
student deemed capable of succeeding
in AP and IB courses with information on their educational goals, career
interests, the adults in the building
whom they trust, and barriers that
they face-the kind of fine-grained
information that isn't unearthed simply by using Preliminary SAT scores,
Marten said.
"If you only use the PSAT scores,
you're going to miss some kids," she
said. "If they tell us that they don't
feel that their classes are challenging,
that's an indicator. If they say, 'I am
willing to take an AP class, I am willing to try,' that's an indicator. If they
have a growth mindset around grit
and academic readiness to be successful-that's an indicator for AP readiness. Those are the silent indicators."
While there has been some criticism of recent pushes to expand AP
and IB that stems, in part, from questions about whether a wider swath of
students are able to pass the rigorous
exams, Saaris said the passing rate
for students who take one or more AP
or IB courses in the districts in which
the organization has worked is 75
percent or higher.
Saaris and Marten said the work
in San Diego and other districts is
not simply about expanding access
to courses, but about ensuring that
students persevere in the classes. Increasing diversity can help students
persist by reducing stereotype threat,
Saaris said. When students see that
the classes mirror the school's diversity, they are less likely to feel that

they don't belong in them, he said.
Each San Diego high school principal is tasked with creating a plan
tailored to his or her school that covers student outreach, staff training,
and the support the school will provide to newly enrolled students.

Providing Support
At Serra High School, Mays discovered many poor and Hispanic students had the grades to participate in
AP and IB but weren't enrolled. The
school's population is 44.3 percent
Hispanic, 26.8 percent white, and 12.2
percent Asian-American, Filipino, and
Indochinese. About 8 percent of students are African-American.
"This year, those students who were
capable-even if they didn't ask me-I
pushed them either into honors or AP
classes, with support," Mays said.
He added math and English/language arts tutoring, hired a professional-learning coach, and changed
professional development for teachers.
The district received a $715,000
National Math and Science Initiative
grant for Serra, where about one-third
of students are dependents of military
personnel, to help those students get
into and complete AP classes.
Students who pass AP English,
math, or science courses can earn
$100, Mays said. The grant also pays
for teacher training. Students also
attend some Saturday sessions with
instructors from across the country,
Mays said.
With the help of Equal Opportunity Schools, Serra has ramped up
outreach to 136 "missing" students.
After sending letters home to parents, the school hosted a recruitment
night where families met AP teachers and students enrolled in the
courses. Mays said that he's heard
the worries that expanding access
dilutes program quality, but that's
not been the case in San Diego.
"I am talking about raising standards, giving all young people what
they need, at the level that they need
it," he said. "Equity means some kids
need more than others. We are talking about pushing people up."
"No one can argue the model because it doesn't take away anything
from high-fliers," he continued. "It
just creates an opportunity for others
to fly."

CLOSING THE 'OPPORTUNITY GAP' IN SAN DIEGO
Percent of 11th and 12th graders taking one or
more AP/IB courses by race/ethnicity and income
WHITE AND ASIAN
Medium/high Income
Low income

Students needed to
reach program equity

2,516 students

71.3%

395

18.6%

59.6% 129

11.7%

43.2%

999

28.1%

BLACK/AFRICAN-AMERICAN
151
44.1%
Medium/high Income
Low income
168 31.0%

27.2%

209

40.3%

HISPANIC/LATINO
Medium/high Income
Low income

ALL OTHER RACES
Medium/high Income
Low income

1,107

52.7%

545
1,474

55.4%

105
25

31.7%

34 15.9%
30

39.6%

1,891 students needed to

reach program equity
SOURCE: Equal Opportunity Schools

DISTRICTS FOCUS ON BOYS OF COLOR
In 2014, nearly all the districts in the Council of the Great City Schools pledged
to take concrete steps to expand educational opportunities for African-American,
Latino, and Native American boys. Those pledges included increasing
participation in Advanced Placement courses; driving down rates of overidentification for special education; focusing on high schools with low graduation
rates; reducing absenteeism; and establishing data-tracking systems.
Here is a snapshot of what some districts have done to date or plan to do to
fulfill the pledge. A comprehensive list of initiatives can be found at
www.malesofcolor.org.

Fort Worth, Texas
To address over-identification in
special education, the district has
established a system to monitor
special education referral data on a
monthly basis and by ethnicity.
To cut down on absenteeism, the
school district has also assigned
stay-in-school coordinators to each
high school feeder pattern. Those
counselors keep regular contact with
school officials, students, and parents.

Portland, Ore.
As part of its expansion of pre-K, the
district is creating "early-learning
hubs" in four communities and offering
universal pre-K. The district is also
developing case studies of schools in
which African-American students are
succeeding academically. It will also
track culturally relevant interventions
for students of color, including for
black, Latino, and Native American
students, and Pacific Islanders.

Milwaukee

Sandy Huffaker for Education Week

Black, Latino boys
are at heart of effort

The district is working to increase
the number of teachers who are
males of color. It is also teaming up
with Milwaukee Succeeds, a local
nonprofit, as well as universities, and
businesses to expand out-of-school
reading opportunities for students. It

is also rolling out a new K-5 literacy
curriculum, and will have small-group
tutoring in select elementary schools to
help students who are reading below
grade level.

San Francisco
The district developed an "AfricanAmerican Achievement and Leadership
Plan" and hired a special assistant to
the superintendent for African-American
achievement and leadership. The
Chamber of Commerce will support an
initial cohort of 250 12th grade AfricanAmerican students and commit to
helping those students get STEM-focused
job offers for all of those students within
two to six years of graduation.

Duval County, Fla.
The district is moving truancy officers
from the central office to school sites to
work directly with students and parents
to cut absenteeism rates. It has a "5,000
Role Models of Excellence Project,"
and has started by recruiting 500 local
businesses and community leaders
to serve as role models for AfricanAmerican boys in 10 middle schools
and high schools. All Title I schools have
graduation coaches to help students,
and the district is also starting parentacademy courses to increase parental
engagement and parent literacy.

SOURCE: Council of the Great City Schools

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Education Week - April 13, 2016

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