Senator wants more access for Iowa students to college prep

One of Iowa’s U-S Senators wants Iowa high schoolers to have better access to “Advanced Placement” or A-P courses to better prep them for college. Tom Harkin says Iowa ranked 46th in the nation on a recent study of the number of 11th and 12th graders taking A-P math, science and other courses. Democrat Harkin says of the one million students nationwide who took A-P exams in 1998, only five thousand were Iowans. Harkin proposes a three-state project that would offer A-P courses to high schoolers over the Internet, and in Iowa, over the fiber-optic Iowa Communications Network.Along with New Mexico and Washington State, the on-line courses would supplement traditional A-P courses. Iowa would get two million dollars to develop the on-line project under Harkin’s plan.