Last updated July 26, 2003
Rod Paige, US Secretary of Education
"College entrance exams reveal that young
people who take challenging classes, such as Advanced Placement courses, perform
better than their peers regardless of their family or financial
background.Taking the harder classes is one of the keys to academic success."
Source.
October 1, 2001.
Richard Riley, Former US Secretary of
Education
"Ending the tyranny of low expectations..."
"I believe that every high school in America should be
offering advanced placement (AP) or other advanced courses in the core subjects
within the next two years, and a fuller range of AP courses within the next
three to five years. Today, only 49 percent of our high schools offer AP courses
and only 10 percent of our students take these demanding courses."
Source.
September 16, 1999.
Jaime Escalante, Retired Mathematics Teacher, Recipient of the United States Presidential Medal of Excellence and the Andres Bello
award by the Organization of American States
"The day someone quits school he is condemning himself to a
future of poverty."
"Determination + Discipline + Hard
Work = Way to Success"
Source.
Dr. Mike Riley, Bellevue
School District Superintendent.
AP As the "Common
Curriculum."
I believe all but a very
few students are right for AP because I believe all students deserve a college
preparatory curriculum. The exceptions to the rule are those with serious
disabilities, a group equivalent to roughly two percent of the K-12 population
in my district, Bellevue School District in Washington State. We haven't yet
achieved this goal in our school district, but we are getting close. In the
class of 2002, 70 percent of our students completed one or more AP classes, and
the class of 2003 will best this record. In one of our high schools, 80 percent
of the current seniors will complete at least one AP class, and over 20 percent
will have completed four or more.
Source. 2002
Clifford Adelman, Senior Research Analyst, U.S.
Department of Education
Of all pre-college curricula, the highest level of mathematics one studies in secondary school has the strongest continuing influence on bachelor's degree completion. Finishing a course beyond the level of Algebra 2 (for example, trigonometry or pre-calculus) more than doubles the odds that a student who enters postsecondary education will complete a bachelor's degree.
Source. 1999