Low-income students will benefit the most from the assistance.
AUGUSTA – More low-income students will now be able to take Advanced Placement classes and sit for the college-level exams, thanks to a three-year, $2.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
High school students can earn college credit by taking advanced placement, or AP, classes and passing a final exam. Historically, AP students have come from well-educated wealthy or middle–class families.
To boost the number of low-income students who take AP courses, the federal government will give the Maine Department of Education $700,000 a year for three years. The state will receive thousands more to pay for the final exams of students who can’t afford them.
“The purpose is to increase the number of low-income kids in the AP experience,” said Wanda Monthey, AP director for the Maine Department of Education. “It’s telling kids they can go to college. They can take AP courses.”
Maine won a similar grant three years ago. That $1.7 million allowed the state to offer its own smaller grants to school systems that needed help training teachers or starting AP courses, which can cost between $200 and several thousand dollars, depending on the subject and the equipment needed. It also allowed the state to pay for the $82 final exams for students who couldn’t afford them.
That assistance helped boost the number of low-income AP students by about 65 percent. In 2002, 241 low-income students took 362 AP exams. In 2003, 398 took 584 exams.
With this latest grant, Monthey hopes to see those numbers jump another 20 percent.
The state will continue to offer teacher training and AP cost assistance.
The $2.1 million will also be used to increase college aspirations in younger students, to boost the number of poor and rural school systems that offer AP classes and to teach guidance counselors about the role of AP classes in college planning.
An additional $26,000 grant will allow the state to continue paying for exams for low-income students.
ltice@sunjournal.com
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