Program Details

REACH will give cash awards for success on AP exams

Qualification Criteria
All 37 AP exams qualify, with the exception of the six foreign language exams (data shows that nearly all students at qualifying schools in NYC who pass such exams are native speakers and thus their pass rate exceeds 93%). Specifically, the French Literature and Spanish Literature exams are included in the REACH program, but the following are not: Chinese Language and Culture, French Language, German Language, Italian Language and Culture, Japanese Language and Culture, and Spanish Language.

The New York City high schools selected for the program met four criteria: a) low-income (at least 50% of students qualify for the free or reduced lunch program); b) at least 15 AP exams taken; c) a pass rate of at least 10%; and d) African-American and Latino students account for at least 40% of the AP exams passed (for each of these criteria, foreign language exams are excluded). All students at schools selected for the program will be eligible for awards, regardless of income or ethnicity. Schools that meet some but not all of these criteria are candidates for REACH’s Development Program

Awards to Students, Teachers, Principals and Schools
Students will receive cash awards for passing AP exams: $500 for each score of 3, $750 for each 4 and $1,000 for each 5.

In addition, REACH will make grants to participating schools and educators as follows:

Each school is receiving $2,000 this month to support its Advanced Placement program, which can be spent at the discretion of each school’s principal in collaboration with its AP teachers.

REACH will provide an additional $100,000 in year one to fund Innovation Grants of up to $10,000 each. REACH will work with educators at participating schools to identify innovative and cost-effective ideas to enhance the schools’ AP programs and will fund the most promising ones.

For each incremental student passing an AP exam at a participating school, REACH will make two grants that mirror the awards to students ($500 for each score of 3, $750 for each 4 and $1,000 for each 5): a grant to the school to support its AP program and an award to the school’s assistant principals and principal.*

For example, if students at a particular school passed 20 AP exams in the 2006-07 school year (assume all 3s), and in the 2007-08 school year, students passed 30 AP exams (again, assume all 3s, then:

- The students would be awarded $15,000 (30 3s x $500); and
- The school would receive $5,000 ($15,000 the students earned minus the $10,000 they would have earned the previous year);
- The principal would receive $2,500 (half of the second matching grant of $5,000) and the assistant principal(s) would receive the remaining $2,500.

Rationale
REACH believes that one of the most pressing issues facing our nation is the dearth of low-income students who attend and graduate from college. Nationwide, approximately half of the children from households in the bottom 25% of income drop out before finishing high school and only 6% will ever receive a four-year college degree. Only 3% of students at the 146 most selective colleges are from bottom-quartile households.

REACH believes that taking and passing Advanced Placement courses are an important predictor of whether students enter and succeed in college. At Texas public colleges and universities, the six-year college graduation rate for African-American and Latino students who passed an AP exam was 61% vs. 16% for those who did not take one. Nationwide, the AP exam pass rate for urban students is a mere 10% vs. 60% for suburban students. In New York City, fewer than 1% of African-American public high school students pass an AP exam each year.

REACH will evaluate its programs to see if providing meaningful financial rewards to students will:

    a)      Result in more students taking rigorous courses all through high school, culminating in AP courses;

    b)      Incentivize students to make the commitment necessary to prepare for and pass AP exams;

    c)      Help offset the financial pressure many students feel to take a part-time job rather than take on additional academic work; and

    d)     Lead students and their parents to demand more rigorous courses and higher-quality teaching.

REACH believes that making performance-based grants to schools will provide them with both the incentive and resources to develop innovative ways to expand and enhance their AP programs, and that providing meaningful financial rewards to assistant principals and principals will result in:

    a)      More highly effective school leaders choosing to work in schools with a high proportion of low-income students;

    b)      School leaders championing the establishment and growth of AP programs and providing support to the teachers behind these programs; and

    c)      School leaders encouraging more low-income students to take AP courses and rigorous courses that prepare students for them.

*Payments to principals and assistant principals are subject to approval of the Conflicts of Interest Board of the City of New York.