Compton Unified’s Commitment to Excellence Honored

The Compton Unified School District has been placed on the Sixth Annual AP® Honor Roll list by the College Board. We are one of 425 School Districts to be honored this year.

Your high schools are being recognized for both increasing the number of students who are enrolling and successfully completing Advanced Placement (AP) classes. AP classes can be as challenging as introductory college courses. They are fast-paced, cover more material than traditional courses, and require independent work like research, writing, and analysis.

While students from all backgrounds can benefit from taking challenging coursework in high school, data from 2015 show that among African American, Hispanic, and Native American students with the potential to succeed in AP, only about half take AP courses.

I believe strongly that EVERY child has the capacity to succeed in school and in life. It is why we live by the motto of having our students “college and career” ready. And we know (and believe) that if students are given the opportunity to succeed at the highest level, many will seize the opportunity.

It is why increasing the number of students who take and succeed in AP was a goal that we outlined in our Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP), which we adopted after engaging parents, educators, employees and the community.

Inclusion on the Sixth Annual AP District Honor Roll is based on the examination of three years of AP data from 2013 to 2015. These nationwide measurable achievements in AP classes are noteworthy and newsworthy.

It was Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. who said “Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.” He wrote that in 1947 when he was in college. If he wrote it today, he would say “a man and a woman.” But the message is clear. For our children to succeed, they must be put in opportunities to succeed.

That’s what we are doing every single day at Compton Unified. Congratulations to our hard working young men and women and their teachers and parents for making us all proud.