Cross-Posted from The Proverbial Tundra
In attempting to bridge the educational gap between Mexican-American students and their white counterparts, Lemon Grove Middle School in Lemon Grove, California is offering Advanced Placement (AP) Spanish (a course that can earn college credit) to its students.
Lemon Grove is the only San Diego County school teaching AP Spanish to sixth-, seventh-and eighth-grade students. The school's goal is to help these students see that they can handle a rigorous academic class and encourage them to take AP courses in other subjects in high school.
"There's no reason for them not to perform well," said Silvia Saña, who teaches AP Spanish at Lemon Grove Middle School.
Why is this so helpful to the students? Not only can a high mark on the AP test earn college credit, but taking AP classes look very good on college applications and can boost a student's GPA because they are weighted (a B in an AP class usually shows up as an A on a report card).
Even better is the boost in confidence success a student can have after succeeding in what is known as a very tough class (I took AP French five years ago and to this day it's been the toughest class I've ever taken).
"I heard only college and high school students took it," she said. "I thought it must be hard."
Abigail has been getting a B+ so far and is looking forward to taking the AP Spanish exam in May.
"I realized, I can do this," Abigail said.
Hopefully this realization that she can succeed in tough classes will translate into her, and others, desire to attempt similarly tough classes in the future and strive to better herself through education.
Not all, however, think Lemon Grove is doing the right thing by offering this AP class. There's the xenophobic reason:
"In public schools, Spanish speakers should put their focus on making sure that they are fluent in English and equipped to speak the kind of English that will open the doors of opportunity to them in this country," says K.C. McAlpin, executive director of Pro English, a non-profit organization promoting English as the official language of the United States.
"I think this school is kind of playing games with educational resources, that you know, I think any taxpayers, especially local taxpayers, would object to," McAlpin told FOXnews.com.
Not even going to bother with this one...
This next critic is being rational, however, and may have a point:
"I’m not sure what’s behind that, but I have suspected and continue to be wary of programs in my district that are making it easy for kids to graduate from high school, and also helping to pad their GPAs (grade point averages) and their chances of getting into universities," says Dan Kimber, a teacher in the Glendale Unified School District.
I do agree that grade inflation is a huge problem in schools these days. In many places, gone are the days of one valedictorian. My class (2004) had 12. However, as I said above, I took AP French in high school, and I got a 3 on it (5 is the highest) and it gained me 6 college credits. We had three native French speakers in my class. Sure, we all "resented" them a little bit for their obvious advantage, but they were just taking the same classes offered to us, just as any student at Lemon Grove could take that AP Spanish class.
I hope more school districts will take a look at what Lemon Grove is doing and see if it may fit into their middle school curriculum, as I think engaging minority students in achieving educational excellence is a worthy goal.