Urban Professionals offers $1,000 for top AP test scores
Wednesday, October 17th 2007, 3:34 PM
Smart kids at 30 city high schools are in for a windfall this year if they ace their Advanced Placement exams.
A nonprofit organization called the Council of Urban Professionals plans to announce a pay-for-performance program tomorrow that will reward students with $1,000 for every AP test on which they earn the top score - a 5 out of 5.
The teens will get $750 for every test on which they earn a 4 and $500 for every score of 3. Participating schools can collect as much as $100,000 based on student scores.
"It's an amazing program," said Gregory Hodge, the principal of Harlem's Frederick Douglass Academy, one of 30 city schools that will participate this year. "I can't wait to see my kids' faces [when they find out]. They're going to be exuberant, bouncing off the walls."
Funded with $1 million from the Pershing Square Foundation, the program is designed to boost the number of low-income students who head to college.
Many colleges give course credit to students who earn high scores on the tough exams, which are given in subjects including English, biology and calculus.
The program is not affiliated with a cash incentives program for younger students announced earlier this year by Mayor Bloomberg.
Under the mayor's privately funded experiment, fourth-graders make as much as $25 and seventh-graders as much as $50 for their performance on each of 10 tests this school year.
The Council of Urban Professionals' program, called Rewarding Achievement, or REACH, is much more lucrative.
Because many students take more than one AP exam, one student could earn several thousand dollars by graduation - especially if schools use the funds to expand AP course offerings.
Hodge predicted that with 350 kids in 14 AP courses, students at Frederick Douglass will rake in $80,000 and the school about $60,000.
"For kids living in Harlem, this is like a gold mine," Hodge said.
"Senior year is so expensive with the prom and the senior trip. ... We can say to them, 'Don't take a part-time job. Relax and focus on academics and you're going to be rewarded.'"
