<p>@HarvestMoon " Through these awards, states provide students from low-income backgrounds with exam fee subsidies and offer teachers from low-income districts funding for professional development. "</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with the government trying to improve the quality of teaching and educational opportunity in low income communities. It’s hardly an excessive amount of money they are spending. As far as the virtual NY program, there are already virtual APs and comparable courses available. Throwing money on reinventing the wheel seems like a waste to me. Teachers often do professional development training at considerable cost to the school system. I have some idea the teachers are even being paid to attend the training. I don’t see why AP should be any different than any other type of specialized teacher training. And the money is going to low income districts and students so it is addressing achievement gap issues.</p>
<p>And $275 million over 5 years–that’s 55 million per year, divide that by 50 states and you get a whopping 1.1 million per state. Give all of our state’s share to our not-very-large school district and you could pay the staff of two of our middle schools who are devoted exclusively to LD/disadvantaged students. It’s ridiculous to suggest that this kind of money if spent on a program that isn’t AP would be having a significant impact on solving the achievement gap.</p>