More Students Passing A.P. Exams

[Jahness]

More Students Passing A.P. Exams

By TAMAR LEWIN

A higher percentage of students in public high schools are taking Advanced Placement exams and earning a passing grade predictive of college success, according to a report issued Wednesday by the College Board. The gap between the performance of black and white students, however, remains large.

Advanced Placement courses, which offer college level study in 37 subjects, are prepared by the College Board and have been widely seized on as a good route to increasing the rigor of a high school education. They are scored on a 5-point scale, and some colleges offer course credit to students who earn a 3 or above.

The proportion of students taking the courses has grown slowly but steadily over the last five years — and so has the percentage of students with a passing grade of 3 or higher.

Last year more than 15 percent of the 2.8 million students who graduated from public high school scored 3 or above in at least one A.P. exam. In 2002, 11.7 percent of the graduates got at 3 or better on at least A.P. exam, as did 14.7 percent of the 2006 graduates.

The gap between the performance of black and white students, however, remains large. Black students are far less likely than whites to take or pass an A.P. exam. Over all, black students made up 14 percent of last year’s graduates, but with only 7.4 of those taking an A.P. exam and only 3.3 percent of those passing one.

By one measure, Hispanic students seemed to have closed the gap with whites. The College Board reported that last year they made up 14.6 percent of the graduates, 14.0 percent of those taking an A.P. exam and 13.6 percent of those passing an A.P. But many of them received that passing grade on the Spanish language exam, and if the Spanish results were eliminated, only 7.5 percent would have a passing A.P. score.

As in past years, New York had the highest proportion of students, 23.4 percent, receiving a grade of 3 or better on at least one A.P. exam. In Connecticut, 20.1 percent had a passing grade, and in New Jersey, 17.1 percent did.

On average, high schools that offer Advanced Placement courses offer nine of the 37 courses in the College Board program.

Although the mean grade on A.P. exams, 2.83 last year, has dipped slightly for the last few years, the College Board said the change has not been statistically significant.

“In every subject, the mean score goes up and down, and we’ve never had a subject that’s gone down for two years in a row, except geography,” said Trevor Packer, director of the College Board’s Advanced Placement program.

He said that as the Advanced Placement program has become a mass program, instead of one for a few elite students, the number of poorly-prepared students getting a 1 on an A.P. exam has been growing, while fewer students are getting a 2, and the number getting a 3, 4 or 5 is staying relatively flat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/ed...hp&oref=slogin


Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

[MsLioness]

That just goes to show you that the rich is getting richer and the poor is getting poorer.

There is a big gap between black students and white students, but mainly black schools and white schools...as far as the AP classes and exams go.
Our school didn't even provide the psychology book that was most needed to study for the exam, we were told.

My english teacher told us we could barely stand a chance, basically, at passing the exam.

The only boy who got a passing score in any of our AP classes, a 3, was in history...a black boy.

But, basically, our schools were not encouraging enough. They didn't give us the idea that we could past the exams and moreover, did not provide us with the study materials needed to prepare for those type of examinations.

My first AP exam was like 6 hours long.... I almost died. No one told us those exams were going to take so long. We were so fatigued after taking it.

Contrary to that, at the white school I went to .... the students were given incentives/bribes/motivation....$500,000 to pass state exams. We were able to take books home and laptops and everything.

And being able to witness the two poles was almost like witnessing a murder. I seen the killer and the victim as he tried to save himself. I, personally, was even more unmotivated to participate in bumping the schools grade up.