The public school system is charged with offering an education to all students and must devote much of its time and treasure on reaching those students who struggle to learn, for whatever reason. This is necessary, the essential mandate of education, but there’s always the risk that stronger students don’t get the opportunities usually available to their counterparts in private schools.
In more recent years, fortunately, there’s a narrowing of that particular gap, so that public school college-bound students can be afforded a more robust pathway to higher education.
The state Department of Education has worked on increasing these opportunities, as witnessed by an improvement in advanced placement (AP) participation by students, who also have been testing better in those college-level classes.
The AP curriculum, which includes a few dozen courses in core subjects as well as history, social sciences, art and languages, is administered by the College Board, the organization that also runs the SAT college assessment tests.
AP classes often are characterized as the gold standard of high school education, but the reality is somewhat more nuanced. At best they are only part of the onramp to a college education, one that can equalize educational outcomes for rich and poor. At worst, they can overstress students, which means moderation is key.
Of course, they are an undeniable academic boon to Hawaii, which can celebrate public school students taking bigger strides toward a college future.
Over the past year, 6,599 public high school students statewide took one or more AP exams in May — 11 percent more than the previous year — and the tally of students who passed with scores of 3, 4 or 5 increased by 15 percent to 4,178.
All of that is great news, on a couple of levels. Doing well in a college-grade course can be a real confidence-booster for the young prospective student. It can award credits that colleges will accept, thus limiting the financial and time burden of enrolling in the same classes in college.
And as class offerings expand on high school campuses, it raises the profile of a program that could help more students aspire to the status of being “college bound.”
Academic researchers have been keeping an eye on AP, trying to understand its relative value. Challenge Success, a nonprofit that partners with schools to improve academic programs, published a study in 2013, titled “The Advanced Placement Program: Living Up to Its Promise?”
For starters, the study concludes, the parent or educator should hesitate before weighting AP programs too heavily as keys to success. “When implemented thoughtfully and effectively, the AP program may benefit certain students and allow for common assessments across schools and districts,” the report stated. “However, the presence of an AP program in a high school is not necessarily a valid indicator of a school’s quality.”
There’s too much variability in classes and teachers to assume too much about the role an AP program plays in college success.
But Hawaii is nowhere near the point where there’s danger of overdoing things. The work by the administration of Kathryn Matayoshi, the past superintendent, and her team to promote the program is paying off.
And now, new Superintendent Christina Kishimoto wants DOE to enable all students to take at least one AP class.
That’s great news. Increasingly, families are finding tuition costs far beyond their reach, including those students with the academic record to get into private schools. They are opting for the public-
school path.
And with a continued effort to raise the bar, through programs such as AP and others, it should become a pathway to excellence. Let’s not forget that the best and brightest sit in public school classrooms, as well.
