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January 25, 2010

Berkeley High may cut lab classes to fund programs for struggling students

Marie L. La Ganga:

Trying to address a major ethnic and racial achievement gap, the school could divert funds from before- and after-school science labs filled mostly with white students. The plan has sparked debate.

Aaron Glimme's Advanced Placement chemistry students straggle in, sleepy. It is 7:30 a.m. at Berkeley High School. The day doesn't officially begin for another hour. They pull on safety goggles, measure out t-butyl alcohol and try to determine the molar mass of an unknown substance by measuring how much its freezing point decreases.

In the last school year, 82% of Berkeley's AP chemistry students passed the rigorous exam, which gives college credit for high school work. The national passing rate is 55.2%. The school's AP biology and physics students are even more successful.

Most districts would not argue with such a record, but Berkeley High's science labs are embroiled in a debate over scarce resources with overtones of race, class and politics.

Campus leadership has proposed cutting before- and after-school labs -- decreasing science instruction by 20% to 40% -- and using that money to fund "equity" programs for struggling students in an effort to close one of the widest racial and ethnic achievement gaps in the state.

Related: English 10.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 25, 2010 3:44 AM
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