Personal tools

Skip to content. | Skip to navigation

Sections
You are here: Home Newsroom Education News Roundup Archive 2010 January 2010 Berkeley High may cut lab classes to fund programs for struggling students

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

  • 01-25-2010
  • Bookmark and Share

By Maria L. La Ganga/Los Angeles Times

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. (more...)

Document Actions
Connect with IDEA
Subscribe to the news roundup

 

facebook-portlet

 

twitter-portlet

 

rss-portlet