Consortium to create distance-education AP courses

Nearly three-fourths of this year’s freshman class entered UW–Madison with an academic head-start – Advanced Placement (AP) credits.

But access to AP courses is far from universal in Wisconsin. Almost one-quarter of the state’s public secondary schools – many of them in low-income rural or urban districts – do not or cannot offer AP courses. And, of the remaining schools that do, only a handful offer more than one or two of the 35 AP courses available through the College Board.

Equal access to quality education is at the heart of the new Wisconsin Advanced Placement Distance Learning Consortium, which will create, operate and maintain an advanced-placement distance-learning clearinghouse for high schools throughout the state.

Developed by the Center on Education and Work (CEW) in the School of Education, the consortium will use participating school districts’ existing teleconferencing facilities to provide “real time” AP classroom instruction, with the pilot year of online instruction to begin in fall 2003.

“The consortium will use distance-education technology to expand opportunities for high school students to pursue more advanced academic course work,” says Wendy E. Way, curriculum and instruction professor, CEW acting director and the project’s principal investigator. “It will build upon Wisconsin’s tradition of educational innovation and excellence, and promises to serve as a model for other states interested in increasing academic achievement among today’s youth.”

Project director and CEW researcher John Gugerty says that talented and ambitious students without access to AP courses are at a distinct disadvantage when they compete against their AP-prepared counterparts. These underserved students – many from low-income or ethnic-minority families – often have no way of knowing whether they can be successful at college.

“Participation in AP courses can change that,” says Gugerty.

Opportunities for students in economically and geographically diverse communities to take AP courses will, in turn, broaden the student base for higher education in Wisconsin, notes School of Education Dean Charles Read. He adds, “By increasing the diversity of college students generally, we anticipate ultimately having a stronger and more diverse teaching force as well.”

According to State Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster, Department of Public Instruction (DPI), “The chance to take rigorous course work for college credit is something that should be afforded to every public high school student in the state no matter where they live.” DPI is a partner in the consortium, which also includes the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the Wisconsin Association of Distance Education Networks, the UW–Madison Division of Continuing Studies and the UW-Extension.

Funding for the three-year project totals nearly $1 million, including $559,208 from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, combined with $400,929 from UW–Madison, the University of Wisconsin System and other institutions.

During the 2002-03 school year, the AP Consortium staff will recruit, train and support 50 licensed Wisconsin teachers to teach 50 AP Consortium courses in 12 subject areas, with a goal of enrolling 500 to 700 students in AP Consortium courses for the 2003-04 school year. During project years two and three, both the number of participating teachers and variety of AP subjects offered will increase.