While California schools  have lagged  behind the nation by some performance measures, it has been a leader in one significant area: the percentage of high school students who take Advanced Placement courses and then pass the AP exams.  This has been true in every subject, from AP physics to AP psychology.

During the past decade, the numbers of students taking and succeeding  in AP courses – an indicator of readiness for rigorous college work — have continued to rise, though not as dramatically as in states that have pushed AP, particularly among minority students.

And now the budget crisis facing California schools, compounded perhaps by sanctions of the No Child Left Behind law, could further erode AP participation, to the detriment of students competing for admission to the University of California and other top colleges.

In the latest report by the College Board, which oversees AP offerings, 32 percent of the class of 2009 in California took at least one AP course, compared with 26.5 percent nationwide, and 20.8 percent of those who took an AP exam scored 3.0 out of 5.0, considered passing, compared with 15.9 percent nationwide.

The state’s participation rate was eighth highest among states, and its passage rate was also eighth in the nation, according to an analysis of California’s AP programs. But in 2004, when 26.4 percent of seniors took an AP course, it was fifth highest in the nation; its passage rate of 17.9 percent was fourth highest. In the nationwide expansion of AP opportunities,  some states are offering minischolarships for students who complete AP courses and bonuses for teachers who put in extra time training and teaching them.

In California, though significantly higher numbers of Hispanics are taking AP courses than five years ago, here, too, the achievement gap has persisted for minorities.

• African Americans comprised 7.3 percent of the class of 2009, but only 3.3 percent of students taking an AP course and only 2 percent of those who passed the exam. That’s virtually the same as in 2004.

• Hispanics comprised 40.1 of the class of 2009 but only 33.4 of students in AP classes and 31.7 of those passing. Five years earlier, when they comprised 35.3 percent of seniors and 29.5 percent of enrollees, 32.3 percent of those who got a 3.0 or more on the exam were Hispanics – a higher proportion than in 2009.

• Both white and Asian-American students had a disproportionately large percentage of enrollment and passage rate.

• There has been notable progress, however, with low-income students. In 2004, 25.9 percent of seniors who  passed the exam were from poor families. In 2009, they made up 29.3 percent of the pass rate – nearly identical to their proportion of the student body.

Arun Ramanathan, the new executive director of the advocacy group Education Trust-West, says that schools could be doing far more to  help minority students  take AP courses. As an example, in San Diego Unified, where Ramanathan was Chief Student Services Officer, all students took the PSAT test, and the results provided guidance on which AP courses to take. This helped to narrow the “access gap” – the exclusion of minority students from courses they and their teachers assumed they couldn’t handle.

Fewer offerings in the offing

But a quick call to two Silicon Valley districts confirmed what College Board officials are predicting for California: a decline in AP enrollments because of budget cuts.

Interim Superintendent Dan Moser of East Side Union High School District said that some AP courses are being offered in alternate years, and minimum enrollments have been raised to 30 students in courses that used to handle 24 students. Students may not get their preferred AP course.

San Jose Unified Assistant Superintendent Chris Funk said that the district has been able  to keep all AP courses. However, the district’s program improvement status  – a sanction for failing to make academic targets for all ethnic and minority groups under federal law – would have an impact on course offerings. Students who were far from proficient on math and English language arts tests would be assigned extra intervention classes. Schools would then have to choose which electives or low-enrolled AP courses to drop to make budget.

Offering extra help to struggling students or AP courses to ambitious students  shouldn’t be a zero-sum game. But it’s becoming that.