In D218, Blacks, Latinos drive enrollment surge in AP courses
Black and Latino students are driving an enrollment surge in Advanced Placement courses in Oak Lawn-based Community High School District 218.
The increases reflect a team effort to increase academic opportunities for students and potentially save their families money by reducing college costs, said
Anthony Corsi, the district’s director of assessment.
“We’ve been very happy with the results so far,” Corsi said.
Overall, 1,675 of the district’s 5,436 students are enrolled in one or more AP class this year. That’s an 84% increase from 909 a year ago.
The number of Blacks enrolled in AP courses has skyrocketed 136% to 305 this year from129 at the start of the 2019-2020 school year. Latino enrollment in AP courses has increased 90%, to 622 from327 a year ago.
The district’s overall enrollment is 37.7% Hispanic, 31.5% white and 27.3% Black, according to Illinois Report Card data. District 218’s three high schools are Eisenhower in Blue Island, Richards in Oak Lawn and Shepard in PalosHeights.
Teachers and administrators launched a focused effort last year to encourage Black and Latino students to consider enrolling in AP courses.
“We started noticing that our AP popu
lationwas not representative of our overall student population,” Corsi said. “Our minority students werewoefully underrepresented, especially African American students.”
District 218 partnered with Equal Opportunity Schools to recruit more minority students to enroll in AP courses. The Seattlebased nonprofit consults with hundreds of school districts nationwide.
Equal Opportunity Schoolsworks with school representatives to analyze grades, standardized test scores and other factors to identify students who are likely to succeed in AP courses.
“Wewere able to identify a whole group of students who should have already been in AP,” Corsi said. “These are kids who should have been in AP but for whatever reason our system missed them.”
District 218 paid Equal Opportunity Schools about $72,000 last year, or about $24,000 for each of the three high schools, Corsi said. The cost this year is expected to be about $65,000, he said.
The return on investment is significant, he said.
“Collectively our students saved $1 million or more,” by not having to pay for college courses, Corsi said.
Equal Opportunity Schools helped the district identify a student whowas a junior last year. Hewas a straight-A student who scored more than 1,400 out of a possible 1,600 on the SAT. The student had never expressed any interested in taking an AP class, or going to college, Corsi said.
“Nobody had ever talked to him,” he said. “Nobody had ever pushed him.”
Part of the recruitment effort involved addressing social and emotional concerns, so students taking AP courses for the first time feltwelcome, like they belonged, he said.
“That’s important, especially to students of color,” Corsi said. “If they’re not seeing studentswho look like they do in the class, they feel it’s not a class for them.”
The College Board, a NewYork City-based nonprofit organization, created AP courses and exams in the 1950s. The College Boardwas founded in 1900 with a mission to expand access to higher education.
In 1926, the College Board introduced the SAT, then known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
AP courses cover virtually all subject areas, including mathematics, science, history and foreign languages. The most popular AP course in District 218 is psychology, Corsi said.
The increase in AP enrollment has not affected staffing levels in District 218, Corsi said. Some employees are teaching AP courses instead of traditional high school-level classes, he said.
AP courses are more rigorous, and students can earn college credit. In a typical year, students would take AP exams in May. TheCOVID-19 pandemic disrupted standardized tests this year.
ACT and SAT testswere canceled, but many AP examswere offered online instead of in person.
Many students take more than oneAP course at a time. Students typically pay a $94 fee for each AP exam they take. However, District 218 covers the exam costs for students who qualify for free or reduced-priced meals, Corsi said.
Seventy-one percent of District 218 students meet low-income eligibility requirements, according to the Illinois Report Card.
State lawrequires that institutions of higher learning grant college credit to high school students who score three or higher on AP exams that have a five-point scale, Corsi said.
Scoringwell on AP tests in high school can reduce college costs by thousands of dollars for many students.
“They’re saving money,” Corsi said.
Many undergraduate college courses are three credit hours. This year, undergraduate tuition for new students fromIllinois is $384 per credit hour at Illinois StateUniversity in Bloomington-Normal. The cost for a three credit-hour course is $1,152.
District 218 has been working to increase enrollment in AP courses for some time. Enrollment has more than doubled over the past decade. Most years sawmodest but steady increases, before the partnershipwith
Equal Opportunity Schools.
The efforts have produced value by encouraging students to achieve their full academic potential. “A student enrolled in an AP class is more likely to go to college and more likely to be successful in college,” Corsi said.