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During the conference, the students asked their parents to write any questions they had on an index card and to hold their questions until the end. This gave the students uninterrupted time to make their presentations.

I feel the student-led conferences empowered students and helped them claim ownership of their education. In our case, it was a responsibility that our student enjoyed.

parents attended the conference without their child and discussed their child's performance with the advisor, who served as an advocate for the student.

These success-against-all-odds stories are captivating. It’s hard to overstate how much “Stand and Deliver” — the 1988 movie about an A.P. calculus teacher who overcame the odds when all his low-income Latino students passed the exam — has influenced many advocates’ perceptions about what an A.P. class can do. And things like this do happen; “Stand and Deliver” is based on real events. But they’re anomalous. Yom credits his success to a number of things: a math department that lays out clear expectations from ninth grade on about what students need to know to get to A.P. calculus, a mentor who has taught A.P. calculus at Lincoln High for 16 years and his own ability to devote countless hours to his students. But once Yom is married and has children, he told me, it simply won’t be sustainable to continue spending so much time with his classes.

Even if students don’t pass the test, there is reason to believe that simply taking A.P. courses is valuable. After all, many students receive passing grades in their courses while still failing the A.P. exam. But because so much focus is on the test — the College Board tracks only participation and outcomes from the tests, not the classes — and because numbers are so much easier to measure than the far more intangible benefits of teaching and learning, the real value of A.P.s can be hard to assess. It seems logical to assume that taking a more rigorous course can have benefits in and of itself: by opening horizons, by sending a message to students that they are capable. And many teachers and students feel that way. Calid Shorter, 17, who was in Fuchs’s A.P. government class this past year, says she was one of his best teachers. “They really care,” he says. “Pushing me into classes has been a benefit — it’s given me more of a go-getter mind-set.”

Is it effective to be investing the time and resources in a program whose benefits seem so difficult to pin down?

* Students assume greater control of their academic progress. * Students accept personal responsibility for their academic performance. * Parents, teachers, and students engage in open and honest dialogue. * Parents attend conferences at increased rates. * Students learn the process of self-evaluation. * Students develop organizational and oral communication skills.

A powerful student-led parent-teacher conference focuses on student learning goals we can set by examining the student's work. This is an active event in which the learner and those responsible for supporting her education identify her strengths and areas of growth and make plans to address these areas.

"From a teacher's perspective, we were able to get a better picture of each child. It forced us to sit down with each student and review strengths and weaknesses. This conversation often told us the students learned more than perhaps we had measured through conventional assessments."

he asks them to choose three examples that help them tell their parents a deeper story: one that shows they have recognized both a personal strength and an area in which they are struggling. Most students, he says, have never thought about their learning in this way. Nor have most of their parents.

kids learn to advocate for themselves

“What do I do well?” and “How can I build on this?”