A dozen years ago on a Saturday morning, a father in Long Beach dropped off his son to take a qualifying test for an AP history class. When the teen got in and the dad later visited the class at Wilson Classical High School, he noticed something odd: Most of the students were white—even though 70% of the school was not.
The father happened to be Chris Steinhauser, back then in his second year as superintendent of Long Beach schools. And so he decided to open up almost all Advanced Placement classes: no more weekend entrance exams, no more qualifying grades.