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AP Capstone

Dr Dignam Portrait 2

Nobody’s Gonna Slow Me Down

I began leading as an Advanced Placement (AP) Coordinator at Lane Tech College Prep High School during the 2006-2007 school year. As an assistant principal at a school of 4,500 students, my duties were largely curricular, as I supervised and administered STEAM, coordinated curricular planning, ran our scholars program, and provided ongoing professional learning for staff.

 

As a former AP biology teacher, I was very familiar with the amount of work a teacher places into planning and teaching AP lessons, units, and creating long plans. I was very excited to begin leading AP, as I was in the unique position of possessing perspective as a former student at Lane Tech, a former AP teacher, and now an assistant principal and AP Coordinator.

When I first inherited the program, the majority of students enrolled in AP were white and Asian. The school’s AP demographics were no different many years earlier when I was a student. There were approximately 4,500 students enrolled at the school but there were just hundreds of students enrolled in Advanced Placement courses. However, the overall Hispanic student population had nearly doubled over the previous decades, but the percentage of Hispanic students enrolled in AP did not increase.

Chris Endemic Quote

Student subgroups outside of our white and Asian student populations were vastly underrepresented. Our pass rate was only 46 percent while little more than 10 percent of the student body was participating in AP course offerings. In addition, we were approximately 45 percent Hispanic but barely 1.4 percent of the Hispanic student body was enrolling in, for example, Spanish literature (the course was limited to heritage speakers only and was endemic of the many obstacles created and denying students access and equity to challenging coursework). 

Old Books and Apple Painting

Little did I know that what began during the 2006-2007 school year would continue for many, many years and result in us creating the largest Advanced Placement program in the state and nation. This work continued throughout the time I was an assistant principal and was further sustained when I became principal at Lane Tech (providing equity and access and expanding our program was a major goal of mine). I led efforts via student and staff consultation and collaboration, partnering with counseling, creating an AP Colloquium for programming, employing a robust AP Potential outreach, assuring professional learning, and removing barriers limiting student participation in Advanced Placement.

Chris AP Quote

As a result, by 2015 we were administering well over 5,000 exams with a pass rate of 71 percent compared to our pass rate of just 46 percent and only several hundred students participating during the 2005-2006 school year. By 2015, our revisioned program was accessible to every student. No longer could someone walk by a classroom and say, “That must be AP.” Students of every racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic background were immersed in our AP program and provided challenging college coursework while still enrolled in a supportive, secondary education environment.

Beginning with the 2014-2015 school year, Lane Tech was selected as one of just one hundred schools in the entire world to offer the new AP Capstone program through the College Board! Beginning with the 2014-2015 school year, students who completed required coursework for the AP Capstone program would receive the AP Capstone Diploma. The AP Capstone Diploma designation would also appear on a student’s transcript. This was an incredible achievement for our work and opportunity for our students.

Chris Open Quote

The AP Capstone Diploma was developed in collaboration with the Association of American Colleges and Universities, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Common Core State Standards Initiative, and the Council of Writing Program Administrators. Our inclusive and expansive efforts led to the AP Capstone Diploma being awarded by the College Board to our students at Lane Tech College Prep. I was extremely happy and proud.

The implications of our inclusion guaranteed the AP Capstone Diploma would be open to every student of every background and not just the predictive student subgroups of past decades beginning with the inception of AP at Lane Tech. This would not have been the case had we not begun our work to ensure all student subgroups were provided opportunities to participate and enroll in Advanced Placement coursework. The opportunity for students of every background to earn the AP Capstone Diploma would be extremely beneficial for college admittance and future academic goals for all learners.

Graduation Cap Painting

No Stop Signs
Our AP growth resulted in us creating the largest advanced placement program in the state and nation in less than ten years. We experienced a 700 percent increase in the growth of our AP program, all the while increasing student cognitive and social-emotional supports, achievement, and success. The AP Capstone Diploma afforded our diverse student body opportunities provided to few schools across the nation and world.

Chris Strength Quote

Although many schools across the world now offer the AP Capstone Diploma, at the time we were among the first 100 high schools worldwide, including schools in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. There were a number of reasons we were awarded the AP Capstone Diploma program. Some of these reasons included our expansion and embraced efforts to increase access and equity for all learners. We had also begun offering every AP course for improving student opportunities. In addition, our program growth was approximately 700 percent, which was phenomenal.

As a result of offering every student of every ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic background access by removing barriers, our program not only expanded in size, it increased in strength and provided an AP Capstone Diploma for all learners that did not previously exist.

Chris

Referenced links and documents:
AP Capstone Program to Begin Next School Year, The Warrior

College and Career Readiness Begins With a Well-Rounded Education: Opportunities Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, David English et al. College and Career Readiness and Success Center at American Institutes for Research. 

District 113 Joins AP Diploma Program, Chicago Tribune 

Highway to Hell by Angus Young, Malcolm Young and Bon Scott 

Flipside by Chris Dignam

Most Colleges Enroll Students Who Aren’t Prepared for Higher Education, Sarah Butrymowicz. PBS News Hour. The Hechinger Report. January 2017

Rigorous Learning: Bridging Students from Our Classrooms to Successful Lives, Willard R. Daggett and Susan A. Gendron. Interntional Center for Leadership in Education. June 2015

Rigorous Learning for All Students, The Education Trust

What it Takes to Be an Instructional Leader, Billy Jenkins. Principal. NAESP. 33-37. January/February 2009

CANE Dubh Publishing

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