Program Pays Off as All Pass Tough Test

Soft-spoken 11th-grader Pedro Ibarra doesn’t brag about his latest accomplishments at La Jolla High School.

But Spanish language teacher Sandra Scherf has no qualms about pointing out that Ibarra and 40 other Latino students all passed their Advanced Placement Exams in Spanish language and literature taken last spring.

On the one hand, the phenomenal success--the national rate for passing the exams is 64%--is proof for Scherf and her colleagues that their effort to triple the number of minority students in high-powered Advanced Placement and other academically rigorous classes is paying off.

Ibarra, a resident of Golden Hill who attends La Jolla under the school district’s voluntary integration program, is planning to attend UCLA to pursue an engineering career because of his interest in math.

Yet the success of Ibarra and others once again raises the dilemma faced by Scherf and her school last spring when almost all of the Latino students--academically bright but economically poor--found themselves unable to pay the $65-per-test fee charged by the College Board, the New York-based organization that administers 29 Advanced Placement tests.

Most of La Jolla’s Latino students attend as part of the integration program and live in Golden Hill or Barrio Logan, about 20 miles south, and Scherf expects more students to take the AP tests next year, based on existing enrollments in her language and literature classes.

After a Times article in March detailed the frantic efforts of La Jolla High teachers to come up with $3,000 for the students, donations from hundreds of individuals throughout the city brought in the necessary funds.

“I don’t think I could have taken the tests otherwise,” said Ibarra, grateful for the help.

The Sol Price Charities gave $10,000 to the district to use for needy students wanting to take AP tests in the spring of 1991.

But La Jolla High principal J. Tarvin, no shrinking violet when it comes to taking on the system, vows to pressure the school district this year to pay AP testing fees for all students, rich or poor, despite its budget woes. The cost would be about $175,000 out of a district budget of $604 million.

“I think, morally and ethically, the district has an obligation to pay for these tests for every student, not just the so-called ‘poor,’ because we strongly encourage students to sign up for the courses, we buy the texts, we hire the teachers, we give the grades,” Tarvin argued last week after learning of the testing results.

And, if the district insists only on covering fees for poorer students, who tend to be nonwhite, Tarvin said, parents of white students might grow resentful, creating racial division.

“The district should not have its principals begging the community for money to pay for these tests. I think Sol Price has done a number of great things for schools, but why should we have to run to him every year for help?”

At La Jolla High last spring, 295 students took 472 tests, with an overall pass rate of 74%. The school paid all fees for about 60 students--57 Latinos and three blacks--and partial fees for many others, Tarvin said. He also gave $1,000 to Kearny High School to help that site cover fees of some students. Districtwide at 16 high schools, 1,733 students took 2,701 tests at a cost of about $175,000, with a pass rate of 58%.

Tarvin concedes that he probably could squeeze money from La Jolla-area school supporters to cover many of the students at his school.

“But we pay for a football helmet for every kid in the district who plays football, whether they can afford it or not. (Uniforms cost the district $250,000 annually.) Why not do the same for students in the most academically oriented programs we have?”

Tarvin pointed out that Florida and South Carolina pay fees for all students, and that many individual school districts around the nation pay the costs.

Tarvin and his staff express particular anger at the way the San Diego district sets priorities for discretionary funds, especially those spent for consultants. The district spent about $4 million for outside consultants last year and just last week approved a $15,000 contract “to train school teams in the collaborative process to enhance student equity.”

La Jolla teachers argue that “student equity” is better served by spending more money directly on student academic achievement, especially when they can demonstrate success for minority students. Generally, dropout rates for nonwhites continue to be high, and the number of Latinos and blacks attending college continues to drop.

Traditionally, the school district has refused to pay AP testing fees, saying the tests are not required in order to pass the yearlong courses, although they are the culmination of the special curriculum in each of the 29 subject areas.

The tests are often used by colleges, along with school academic records and other factors, in deciding whether or not to admit a student. Many colleges award unit credits toward graduation for any student achieving a 3 or above (out of 5) on the tests. Stanford University, for example, will award 10 units for any student with a 4 or 5, which Scherf said would be worth $3,000 in decreased tuition bills for students.

“And, out of my 41 students, 32 received a 4 or 5,” Scherf said.

City Schools Supt. Tom Payzant said he would no longer object to the district paying for the tests “if budget funding were not a problem.”

“But having just made ($22 million) in cuts, there are not the dollars available,” Payzant said. “We’ll have to rely on individual support from people and grants such as that from the Price Charities.

“I would hope that the principals will work together to find out what the need is among their students, so that we can at least see how far we can go with the funds that we do have.”