News Briefs
College Board to drop four AP subjects
Apr 24, 2008 6:13 PM
High school students looking to take advanced placement classes and exams after the next school year will see a smaller menu of options. The nonprofit College Board, which administers the program, announced it was dropping classes and exams in Italian, Latin literature, French literature and computer science AB, an advanced course. The drawing down from the present 37 course choices to 33 is expected to affect some 12,500 students and 2,500 teachers worldwide.
A College Board official said trustees made the decision in order to “achieve our mission of reaching a broader range of students,” and that few members of “underrepresented minority groups” who take AP exams take the tests in one of the four subject areas. The College Board says its priority is reaching such students, including those who are African-American and Hispanic.
The nonprofit will continue to offer AP French language and introductory-level computer science, and the Italian program — which was 400 percent over budget following low enrollment numbers — might be saved if compensating outside money was forthcoming.
“This wasn’t a situation of us going to the trustees and saying we need to cut costs,” the official said, but a question of deploying resources “less diffusely.” The remaining programs will be better funded, he said, and no further cuts are contemplated for at least five years.
Education Week, April 9
