EDUCATION : ON LEARNING : Advanced Courses and Minorities: No Simple Solutions

A class-action lawsuit filed in Los Angeles this summer made some disturbing allegations. It said many African American and Latino students in California don’t even have a shot at getting into the state’s most prestigious public universities because their schools don’t offer enough Advanced Placement classes.

Those highly demanding courses are more crucial than ever these days. That’s because they boost grade-point averages, an even more significant factor in college admissions since the end of affirmative action programs at the state’s public universities in 1996.

Given their importance, it’s not surprising that AP classes have exploded in popularity in California in the past decade. In 1998, nearly 90,000 students took AP tests.

Not all groups of students are participating equally in that boom, however. Fifty of every 1,000 white students took AP tests in 1998. But only 32 of every 1,000 Latinos and 16 of every 1,000 African Americans did so.

Those data might seem to provide strong support for the claims made in the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of four Inglewood High School students.

But the situation is not that clear cut. It turns out that even when African American and Latino students attend schools with large numbers of AP classes, they are less likely than their white and Asian American peers to take them.

That’s the conclusion of a recent study by the California State University system’s Institute for Education Reform. The availability of courses is a factor, of course. But schools with more white students or more affluent students are only slightly more likely to have AP classes than schools with high proportions of poor, African American or Latino students.

In 90% of schools, however, African Americans are underrepresented in AP courses; the same is true for Latino students in 95% of the schools. Asian students are dramatically overrepresented, suggesting that culture is a factor as well.

To illustrate this point, the Cal State study cited data from Westchester High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

In 1997, the school had 23 AP classes in 11 subjects, which put it among the leaders in the state. (This fall, Westchester Principal Sharon Ann Lilly says, the school began the year with even more AP courses--28, including studio art, computers, European history and statistics.)

About 70% of the school’s 2,100 or so students are African American. But only 50% of the students in the AP classes are black. In 1997, only 30% of the AP tests at the school were taken by African Americans, and they earned only 16% of the passing grades.

Westchester-Venice cluster administrator Carol Dodd, Lilly and her teachers decided last year to address the situation.

“There has to be motivation in the home. There has to be motivation in the school and . . . even in the community,” Lilly said. “Academic pursuit has to be part of the popular culture, and that’s what we’re working toward at Westchester.”

Unlike many high schools, Westchester has maintained a full-time position for a college counselor to help students with applications, entrance exams, scholarship searches and the like. In addition, this fall the school has hired a “college incentive advisor.”

That woman, whose salary will be partially paid by UCLA as part of its community outreach efforts to increase its flagging minority enrollment, will bring college students onto campus as role models to eat lunch and to share their experiences. She will also work with parents, explaining the importance of AP classes as well as the immeasurable benefit of simply supporting and encouraging their children’s academic strivings.

From the community, Westchester is getting help from companies such as Mercury Air Group and Hughes Space & Communications. The $1 billion that Bill and Melinda Gates last week said they would pour into college scholarships for promising minority students over the next 20 years will provide another boost.

More must be done, however. Elementary and middle schools must expect as much of minority students as others, and the students must have equal access to highly trained, effective teachers. That will better prepare them for demanding courses later on.

ACLU attorney Marc Rosenbaum, who is handling the AP lawsuit, was familiar with the Cal State study. He still insists that lack of class availability--either because they aren’t being offered or because minority students are discouraged from taking them--is the biggest problem.

But, he acknowledged, “permanent and significant” progress won’t occur without much more--including higher expectations.