Mamma mia! The Advanced Placement Italian test may be axed

The "save our exam" battle cry is at the core of a campaign to rescue the Advanced Placement test in Italian Language and Culture. The College Board launched the exam with fanfare just three years ago but now is threatening to kill it unless donations are found to support it and the number of test takers increases.

"It's a formidable task we are facing. We realize that. But we also feel there is nothing more important to the Italian American community than the preservation of Italian language education, and the AP is central to that," said Margaret Cuomo, daughter of the former New York governor and a leader in the national effort to save the test.

Advanced Placement exams test high school students' grasp of college-level material and also lend luster to subject areas and to students. The 37 AP exams, offered in such subjects as biology, music theory and world history, spur enrollment in related courses because many colleges grant academic credit to high schoolers who pass the challenging tests.

AP language courses also can create lifelong ties of tourism and, as Italians say, simpatia with the country and culture.

In this case, ethnic pride is involved because the Italian test is at risk while other AP language exams, including relatively new ones in Chinese and Japanese, are not. Protests led to a recent meeting between the Italian ambassador to the U.S. and the College Board president to discuss further aid from the Italian government, which gave $300,000 to help create the test. Italian Americans also donated $200,000 to the effort.

But the issue goes beyond those with Italian roots.

Nayelli Casarrubias, for instance, whose family is Mexican American, took four years of Italian at San Pedro High School, including the AP course leading to the test she passed in May. She wants to be trilingual, she says.

"It will be pretty dumb to end the test," said Casarrubias, who is starting at UC Davis this month as a neuroscience major with an Italian minor. The chance to earn college credit motivates high school students to take more than the two years of foreign language that UC requires for entrance, she said. "The test is what you are getting prepared for all those four years," she said.