AP Program In Indiana

Nice article in the Indiana Star today Doing well on AP tests will result in money in students' pockets but the headline kind of misses the point. You have to read to the end of the article to get the great quote-
 
“In a normal year, I can send one or two teachers to the training,” said John Schilawski, Whiteland high’s interim principal. “This year I got to send 14 teachers and we don’t pay for it. That is huge.”  “What we’re trying to do is get a steady pipeline of students coming into AP,” Schilawski said. “This isn’t about incentives and stipends. It’s about helping students prepare for the rigors of college.”
 
So very true. While the student incentives and teacher incentives in the NMSI AP program get a lot of attention, the school transformation comes from aggressive analysis of the school performance and data, aggressive goal setting, comprehensive teacher training, building the pipeline through training and resources for middle and high school teachers, more time on task for students and classroom lab resources. 
 
It is interesting that the person had to go to a 1970 study on student incentives to find a "critique" and then provided data that long term it didn't work in Dallas. Wrong. Dallas started with 29 black and Hispanic students taking and passing AP and today that number is over 1,100.  Not the 8% which is for the entire system when we are in only 10 schools.
 
But - for the most part a nice highlight on the AP program and the progress we are making with the I3 Grant from the US Department of Education!