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AP Central
Click here for all things “AP” – here you’ll find links to courses and exams, Pre-AP, search for institutes/workshops, join a discussion group, etc. This is your home base for teaching and learning in Advanced Placement. |
AP Course Home Pages @ AP Central
Click here and you’ll find easy access to the course you teach. AP Practice Exams Click here to access free, downloadable AP Practice Exams. AP Course Revisions Click here to learn more about course revisions (both current and upcoming) in the Advanced Placement program. |
AP Teacher Community
This online community is where AP teachers discuss teaching strategies, share resources, and connect with each other.
Discussion Boards
Discuss all things AP on the discussion boards. Share strategies, ask questions, and engage in lively discussions with teachers worldwide. Subscribe to topics of interest.
Resource Library
Search an organized collection of teacher resources shared by you, your peers, and the AP program. You can upload lesson plans or classroom activities, share resources and useful sites, and rate and provide feedback on what works best for you.
Email Digests and Communications
Daily or weekly digests provide an easy way to keep up with your Community. Use My Preferences to select what you want to include: all discussions or just the topics and discussion threads you want to follow. You can also receive updates when members post new resources, comments and more. You can also receive individual emails for all of the above to keep tabs on the Community in real-time.
This online community is where AP teachers discuss teaching strategies, share resources, and connect with each other.
Discussion Boards
Discuss all things AP on the discussion boards. Share strategies, ask questions, and engage in lively discussions with teachers worldwide. Subscribe to topics of interest.
Resource Library
Search an organized collection of teacher resources shared by you, your peers, and the AP program. You can upload lesson plans or classroom activities, share resources and useful sites, and rate and provide feedback on what works best for you.
Email Digests and Communications
Daily or weekly digests provide an easy way to keep up with your Community. Use My Preferences to select what you want to include: all discussions or just the topics and discussion threads you want to follow. You can also receive updates when members post new resources, comments and more. You can also receive individual emails for all of the above to keep tabs on the Community in real-time.
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Apply to be an AP Reader
If you want to learn how to provide even better instruction, apply to become an AP Reader! You get paid to score AP exams. There are a few people in DMPS who have been selected as AP Readers. Typically, after 3 years of teaching the course, you can apply to be selected to score exams. However, as the number of AP exams has increased, the need for AP Readers has grown. If you are interested, I would encourage you to apply to be an AP Reader even if you have only taught the course two years. It is likely you will be selected for this wonderful professional development opportunity. |
From the College Board . . .
Each June, AP teachers and college faculty members from around the world gather in the United States to evaluate and score the free-response sections of the AP Exams. AP Exam Readers are led by a Chief Reader, a college professor who has the responsibility of ensuring that students receive scores that accurately reflect college-level achievement. More than 11,000 teachers and college faculty participated in the 2011 Reading. Secondary school Readers can receive certificates awarding professional development hours and continuing education units (CEUs). In addition, Readers are provided with an honorarium of $1,639 and their travel expenses, lodging and meals are covered. |
District Research Reveals Ways to Help At-Risk Students Graduate
"With that, the analysts found completing at least one Advanced Placement course in 11th grade also quadrupled college likelihood. For students not in poverty, completing rigorous coursework closed racial gaps almost entirely. For example, going just on the race of students not in poverty, black freshmen had a 28 percent likelihood of being college-ready by graduation, and Hispanic students a 39 percent probability, compared to 56 percent and 69 percent for white and Asian students respectively. However, among students who completed Algebra 1 in 8th grade, at least one advanced class in 9th grade, and Algebra 2 and one Advanced Placement course by the end of 11th grade, the likelihood of going to college was 95 percent or more for all students, regardless of race." By Sarah D. Sparks August 1, 2014
"With that, the analysts found completing at least one Advanced Placement course in 11th grade also quadrupled college likelihood. For students not in poverty, completing rigorous coursework closed racial gaps almost entirely. For example, going just on the race of students not in poverty, black freshmen had a 28 percent likelihood of being college-ready by graduation, and Hispanic students a 39 percent probability, compared to 56 percent and 69 percent for white and Asian students respectively. However, among students who completed Algebra 1 in 8th grade, at least one advanced class in 9th grade, and Algebra 2 and one Advanced Placement course by the end of 11th grade, the likelihood of going to college was 95 percent or more for all students, regardless of race." By Sarah D. Sparks August 1, 2014
Eligible Students Missing Out on AP
By Caralee J. Adams
February 8, 2012
In all but four states, more public school students in the class of 2011 took and passed at least one Advanced Placement exam—18.1 percent on average—up from 16.9 percent for graduates the year before, according to a report released Wednesday.
Yet the 8th annual "AP Report to the Nation" shows that many students who had the academic potential to succeed in AP didn’t take exams, either by choice or because they attended a school that did not offer the subjects.
This year’s report by the College Board analyzes data from the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test and found that of the 771,000 students in the class of 2011 who scored well enough to be considered ready for AP, nearly 478,000 (62 percent) did not take an AP exam for which they were recommended.
"These data confirm the need to continue expansion of AP opportunities for prepared and motivated students, because hundreds of thousands of U.S. students have indeed been academically ready for the challenge of an AP course but lacked the opportunity, encouragement, or motivation to participate," said Trevor Packer, the senior vice president of AP and college readiness for the College Board, in a written statement.
The gap in ability versus participation was even greater for most groups of minority students. Of the white students recommended for AP, 61.6 percent did not take an AP subject, while 42.1 percent of Asian-American students did not take it. Yet 79.4 percent of African-Americans, 70.4 percent of Hispanic/Latinos, and 73.7 percent of American Indian/Alaska Natives did not take the recommended AP subject.
Although the number of minority students taking AP courses is increasing overall, they are still underserved in AP classrooms compared with their proportion of the school population, this year's report shows.
When it comes to performance of all students in last year's class, the percentage that received a passing score of 3 or higher was 56.2 percent, 0.1 percent higher than the class of 2010. Still, it was down from 2001, when 60.8 percent passed.
AP tests are graded on a scale of 1 to 5. A score of 3 is considered a minimum passing score for predicting success in college, according to the College Board, the nonprofit based in New York City that sponsors the courses and exams.
Math, Science Weakness
Student success in passing AP science and math exams such as chemistry, biology, statistics, and calculus dipped slightly in this year’s report as the number of test-takers grew.
For math, there was a 5.7 percent increase in students taking the tests, but a 4.9 percent increase in those passing. The percentage of students passing AP math exams dropped from 57.3 percent to 56.9 percent from the class of 2011 compared with the previous year’s class.
For science, 8.8 percent more students took the AP exam, and 7.7 percent more received a 3 or higher score, dropping the overall passing rate from 49.8 percent to 49.3 percent from the class of 2011 compared with that of 2010.
In the overall state breakdown, Maryland led with 27.9 percent of its graduates participating in AP and scoring a 3 or higher. New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut rounded out the top five states.
"As AP expands to a broader group of students, however, the rate of students not earning a 3 or higher is also at a historic high—12.1 percent of students in the class of 2011," Mr. Packer said. "The higher percentage of students not succeeding in AP confirms the point that just as not all high school students are ready for college, not all high school students are ready for AP, and greater emphasis should be placed on preparing students in the pre-AP years (typically grades 6-10) for the rigors of AP and college."
"There is some progress in the fact that more students are taking AP," said Bob Wise, the president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. "AP is a proxy for increased rigor academically and for college and career readiness. The good news is that student demand for rigor is continuing to increase and student performance is slowly increasing. Some of it is handicapped by the availability and the confidence level of how well they’d do. Should they take an AP course? Should they take that risk?”
The challenge is to increase access to AP and convince teachers, students and parents to understand that taking the AP course is worthwhile regardless of how students are going to finish in the end. The experience of taking an advanced course is valuable, even if students get a 1 or a 2 on the final AP exam, Mr. Wise said.
Mr. Wise says he’s surprised that gatekeeping policies limiting AP classes to the top 10 percent of student still exist. "That sends a message to the other 90 percent: Don't aspire," he said. "Every place I've seen where students were challenged to do more, and were given the supports to do that they rose to that challenge."
New Data on AP's Impact
By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 9, 2009
On one wall of my cubicle is a large chart extracted from Tom Luce and Lee Thompson's 2005 book "Do What Works: How Proven Practices Can Improve America's Public Schools." It shows that a study of 78,000 Texas students found college graduation rates much higher for those who, while in high school, took Advanced Placement exams -- but failed them -- than those who took no AP exams at all.
At this point, you may be saying, "Huh?" We AP wonks are an odd breed. We often cite statistics that make no sense to normal people. But I will try to explain this one, and why it was greeted with such excitement by AP teachers four years ago.
AP courses are given in nearly 40 subjects. They allow high school students to earn college credit, or at least skip college introductory courses, if they do well on the final exams. Many AP teachers argue that students' grades on the three-hour exams, given in most U.S. high schools every May, are not as important as taking the college-level course and exam and getting a taste of college trauma. Many of their students who flunk the AP exam still report, when they come back to visit after their freshman year of college, that the AP experience made it easier for them to adjust to fat college reading lists and long, analytical college exams. They may have failed the AP exam, but by taking it, and the course, they were better prepared for the load of stuff dumped on them in college. When they took the college introductory course in the subject that had been so difficult for them in high school AP, they did much better.
The Texas study showing that failed AP students were more likely to graduate from college than non-AP students was thus greeted as proof that the AP teachers' view on this issue was correct. But the researchers who had done the work cautioned against putting too much weight on it. There were too many variables to reach hard conclusions.
For instance, as statisticians always remind me, correlation is not the same thing as causation. Just because students who struggled with AP exams did better in college did not mean that the AP experience produced those good college results. Perhaps the sort of students who took AP were more hard-working, and that explained their success in college.
Now, however, a new study has arrived that I am sure will once again send a buzz through AP Land, since it endorses with greater force the view that getting kicked around by an AP course and exam is good for you. The study, published on the College Board Web site, is "College Outcomes Comparisons by AP and Non-AP High School Experiences" by Linda Hargrove, Donn Godin and Barbara Dodd. Hargrove and Godin are researchers who work for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Dodd is a professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. They have published several articles on the effects of AP, using Texas' state database, one of very few that allow scholars to follow the progress of students from public schools into state colleges. This new study uses data from five graduating high school classes, 1998 to 2002, that total 302,969 students.
For AP teachers and others who argue over the effect of AP and other college-level high school courses such as International Baccalaureate, this somewhat convoluted sentence in the summary section of the report will draw the most attention: "The preponderance of academic subject-specific analyses (AP English Language, AP English Literature, Calculus, Biology and History) showed that students, matched on SAT ranked score intervals (measuring ability or college readiness) and FRPL [free and reduced price lunch] status (family income measure), who took both an AP course and exam in the corresponding AP subjects significantly outperformed AP course only, dual enrollment only (excluded for AP Biology), and other courses students on all the college outcomes, even after gender and ethnicity were taken into account."
Whew. I also had to read it three times before I got it. Two footnotes might help. (1) Dual enrollment courses are classes offered to high school students by local colleges, who either invite the students to their campuses or train or send instructors to the high schools to teach courses that can earn college credit. (2) The college outcomes measured in this study included students' first- and fourth-year college grade point averages, the number of college credit hours earned and the percentage of students who graduated from college in four years.
What was most interesting about this study was that it attempted to compare students with similar academic characteristics so that it would be less likely that the results could be explained by the notion that students who took AP courses and exams were just naturally better students than those who did not take AP. As the long sentence above says, the study compared the college outcomes of AP students who had low SAT scores with the outcomes of non-AP students with low SAT scores, and found the AP students did better. Similarly, AP students from low-income families, who often struggle in college, did better than non-AP students from low-income families.
AP exams are graded on a five-point scale. According to College Board vice president and AP director Trevor Packer, a grade of 5 is equivalent to a college A, a 4 is equivalent to a high B, a 3 is a high C, a 2 is a D and a 1 is an F. The College Board gives AP exams to college students who have just completed a college introductory course in the same subject and compares their college grades to what they get on the AP. Some selective colleges give credit only for scores of 4 or 5, but the vast majority of incoming college students, who attend less selective state schools, can get credit for a 3. Often when talking about grades, we AP wonks say 3 to 5 are passing grades and below 3 are failing grades.
On pages 35 and 36 of their report, the Texas researchers revealed what was for me the most interesting of their many new disclosures. They show that even students who only get a 2 on their AP exams after taking the AP course have significantly better college outcomes than non-AP students. Students who get 1s on the exam do not do better than non-AP students, but as I have often heard AP teachers say, they have no chance to build those students up to a 2 or a 3 unless they are allowed in their courses.
These are complicated issues. This study is not the last word. Critics of AP may say that these researchers' work is tainted by the fact that the College Board, which owns the AP program, paid them for their study. But there is no question they are reputable, independent scholars, and their data is there for all to see.
It is extremely rare to have such a study with a sample that large, more than 300,000 living, breathing students. The fact that it confirms what many AP teachers have been seeing in their classes leads me to think that we are getting close to the truth, and that the vast majority of high schools that still bar average students from taking AP, who tell those kids they just aren't ready for a college challenge, should consider how much even struggling students get out of this experience they are denying their kids.
Is AP for All a Formula for Failure?
By Jay Mathews
Monday, June 8, 2009
I spend much time with aggressive Advanced Placement teachers. They tell me, quite often, that students must be stretched beyond their assumed capabilities. Whenever I try to pass on this advice, however, I become a target for ridicule and disbelief from readers.
Here comes more of that stuff. Newsweek unveils this week my annual rankings of America's Top High Schools, with a new twist that skeptics will find even less congenial.
The latest list, to appear on newsweek.com, will include about 1,500 schools that have reached a high standard of participation on college-level AP, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge tests. The bad news is they represent less than 6 percent of U.S. public high schools. The good news is that 73 percent of Washington area schools are on the list. The interesting news is that some of those schools have begun to require AP courses and tests for all students, even those who struggle in class.
Newsweek and The Washington Post use the Challenge Index, which I conceived in 1998 and have been fiddling with since. This time I am adding a separate Catching Up list for high schools that use AP as shock treatment for impoverished students who have been in the academic doldrums. On this new list are 29 schools with AP test participation rates high enough to qualify for the Newsweek list but with test passing rates under 10 percent. Seven are in this area: Coolidge, Bell Multicultural, Friendship Collegiate, SEED, Thurgood Marshall and McKinley Tech in the District, and Crossland in Prince George's County.
Some people might call this the straggler list. I don't. I have spoken to the administrators of many of those schools. What they say makes sense. They have tried raising achievement slowly with remedial education. It didn't work, in part because the teachers and students had no worthy goal to shoot for. So they have made the AP test their benchmark, and in preparing for it hopes to give low- performing students the strenuous academic exercise they need for college. Few pass the three-hour AP exams, so few get college credit. So what? They aren't in college yet. This way they have a chance to accustom themselves to the foot-high reading assignments and torturous exams they will encounter in college.
Each year, more data suggest that this is the right approach. A new study of 302,969 students who graduated from Texas high schools shows that even low-performing students -- those who got a failing grade of 2 on the 5-point AP test -- did significantly better in college than did similarly low- performing, low-income students who did not take AP. Nationally, most high schools are so lax in their duties that half their students heading for college never take an AP, IB or Cambridge course and test and thus have little clue what awaits them.
Many AP teachers I know spend much of their time coaxing such under-served students into their classes. That is true at Bell Multicultural High School, the first public school in this area to require all students to take AP. And not just any AP. They must study AP English Literature and AP English Language, especially difficult for the many children of immigrants at Bell.
Daniel Gordon, a Harvard University Law School graduate I watched teach at Bell last year, said the prospect of a college-level exam is a big motivator for students. One of them, Esmeralda Posadas, said, "It forced students who don't speak English at home to focus all their attention on it. It is not run- of-the-mill." Only three students got a passing score of 3 or higher on the exam in 2007, but Posadas was one of 31 who got a score of 2.
AP teachers with that kind of attitude are not the majority. A recent Fordham Institute survey revealed that only 38 percent of AP teachers believe "the more students taking AP courses, the better," while 52 percent said "only students who can handle the material" should take AP. One of my favorite bloggers, Fairfax County instructional technology specialist Tim Stahmer of assortedstuff.com, frequently says too many unprepared students are being channeled into AP and urged to go to college.
My response is, what harm does that do? They work harder in high school, and if they graduate still determined not to go to college, they will discover that those AP skills are just what they need to get the best available jobs or trade school slots. If they don't take an AP class and test, they will never know whether they could have handled it. Many students from non-college families discover they can. Montgomery County Superintendent Jerry D. Weast has been beefing up instruction in lower grades and luring students into college-level courses for years, with impressive results. The portion of impoverished Montgomery AP students who passed the tests increased from 12.3 percent in 2002 to 22.4 percent in 2006.
The Catching Up schools aren't losers. They are strivers, fueled by the high spirits of teachers who keep telling me how much more their kids can do than they expected. Their schools are exciting. History students are writing an essay every day. English students are publishing books. Those who think this is a good idea are still a beleaguered minority, but we are growing. Watch out.
E-mail: [email protected]
By Caralee J. Adams
February 8, 2012
In all but four states, more public school students in the class of 2011 took and passed at least one Advanced Placement exam—18.1 percent on average—up from 16.9 percent for graduates the year before, according to a report released Wednesday.
Yet the 8th annual "AP Report to the Nation" shows that many students who had the academic potential to succeed in AP didn’t take exams, either by choice or because they attended a school that did not offer the subjects.
This year’s report by the College Board analyzes data from the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test and found that of the 771,000 students in the class of 2011 who scored well enough to be considered ready for AP, nearly 478,000 (62 percent) did not take an AP exam for which they were recommended.
"These data confirm the need to continue expansion of AP opportunities for prepared and motivated students, because hundreds of thousands of U.S. students have indeed been academically ready for the challenge of an AP course but lacked the opportunity, encouragement, or motivation to participate," said Trevor Packer, the senior vice president of AP and college readiness for the College Board, in a written statement.
The gap in ability versus participation was even greater for most groups of minority students. Of the white students recommended for AP, 61.6 percent did not take an AP subject, while 42.1 percent of Asian-American students did not take it. Yet 79.4 percent of African-Americans, 70.4 percent of Hispanic/Latinos, and 73.7 percent of American Indian/Alaska Natives did not take the recommended AP subject.
Although the number of minority students taking AP courses is increasing overall, they are still underserved in AP classrooms compared with their proportion of the school population, this year's report shows.
When it comes to performance of all students in last year's class, the percentage that received a passing score of 3 or higher was 56.2 percent, 0.1 percent higher than the class of 2010. Still, it was down from 2001, when 60.8 percent passed.
AP tests are graded on a scale of 1 to 5. A score of 3 is considered a minimum passing score for predicting success in college, according to the College Board, the nonprofit based in New York City that sponsors the courses and exams.
Math, Science Weakness
Student success in passing AP science and math exams such as chemistry, biology, statistics, and calculus dipped slightly in this year’s report as the number of test-takers grew.
For math, there was a 5.7 percent increase in students taking the tests, but a 4.9 percent increase in those passing. The percentage of students passing AP math exams dropped from 57.3 percent to 56.9 percent from the class of 2011 compared with the previous year’s class.
For science, 8.8 percent more students took the AP exam, and 7.7 percent more received a 3 or higher score, dropping the overall passing rate from 49.8 percent to 49.3 percent from the class of 2011 compared with that of 2010.
In the overall state breakdown, Maryland led with 27.9 percent of its graduates participating in AP and scoring a 3 or higher. New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut rounded out the top five states.
"As AP expands to a broader group of students, however, the rate of students not earning a 3 or higher is also at a historic high—12.1 percent of students in the class of 2011," Mr. Packer said. "The higher percentage of students not succeeding in AP confirms the point that just as not all high school students are ready for college, not all high school students are ready for AP, and greater emphasis should be placed on preparing students in the pre-AP years (typically grades 6-10) for the rigors of AP and college."
"There is some progress in the fact that more students are taking AP," said Bob Wise, the president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. "AP is a proxy for increased rigor academically and for college and career readiness. The good news is that student demand for rigor is continuing to increase and student performance is slowly increasing. Some of it is handicapped by the availability and the confidence level of how well they’d do. Should they take an AP course? Should they take that risk?”
The challenge is to increase access to AP and convince teachers, students and parents to understand that taking the AP course is worthwhile regardless of how students are going to finish in the end. The experience of taking an advanced course is valuable, even if students get a 1 or a 2 on the final AP exam, Mr. Wise said.
Mr. Wise says he’s surprised that gatekeeping policies limiting AP classes to the top 10 percent of student still exist. "That sends a message to the other 90 percent: Don't aspire," he said. "Every place I've seen where students were challenged to do more, and were given the supports to do that they rose to that challenge."
New Data on AP's Impact
By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 9, 2009
On one wall of my cubicle is a large chart extracted from Tom Luce and Lee Thompson's 2005 book "Do What Works: How Proven Practices Can Improve America's Public Schools." It shows that a study of 78,000 Texas students found college graduation rates much higher for those who, while in high school, took Advanced Placement exams -- but failed them -- than those who took no AP exams at all.
At this point, you may be saying, "Huh?" We AP wonks are an odd breed. We often cite statistics that make no sense to normal people. But I will try to explain this one, and why it was greeted with such excitement by AP teachers four years ago.
AP courses are given in nearly 40 subjects. They allow high school students to earn college credit, or at least skip college introductory courses, if they do well on the final exams. Many AP teachers argue that students' grades on the three-hour exams, given in most U.S. high schools every May, are not as important as taking the college-level course and exam and getting a taste of college trauma. Many of their students who flunk the AP exam still report, when they come back to visit after their freshman year of college, that the AP experience made it easier for them to adjust to fat college reading lists and long, analytical college exams. They may have failed the AP exam, but by taking it, and the course, they were better prepared for the load of stuff dumped on them in college. When they took the college introductory course in the subject that had been so difficult for them in high school AP, they did much better.
The Texas study showing that failed AP students were more likely to graduate from college than non-AP students was thus greeted as proof that the AP teachers' view on this issue was correct. But the researchers who had done the work cautioned against putting too much weight on it. There were too many variables to reach hard conclusions.
For instance, as statisticians always remind me, correlation is not the same thing as causation. Just because students who struggled with AP exams did better in college did not mean that the AP experience produced those good college results. Perhaps the sort of students who took AP were more hard-working, and that explained their success in college.
Now, however, a new study has arrived that I am sure will once again send a buzz through AP Land, since it endorses with greater force the view that getting kicked around by an AP course and exam is good for you. The study, published on the College Board Web site, is "College Outcomes Comparisons by AP and Non-AP High School Experiences" by Linda Hargrove, Donn Godin and Barbara Dodd. Hargrove and Godin are researchers who work for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Dodd is a professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. They have published several articles on the effects of AP, using Texas' state database, one of very few that allow scholars to follow the progress of students from public schools into state colleges. This new study uses data from five graduating high school classes, 1998 to 2002, that total 302,969 students.
For AP teachers and others who argue over the effect of AP and other college-level high school courses such as International Baccalaureate, this somewhat convoluted sentence in the summary section of the report will draw the most attention: "The preponderance of academic subject-specific analyses (AP English Language, AP English Literature, Calculus, Biology and History) showed that students, matched on SAT ranked score intervals (measuring ability or college readiness) and FRPL [free and reduced price lunch] status (family income measure), who took both an AP course and exam in the corresponding AP subjects significantly outperformed AP course only, dual enrollment only (excluded for AP Biology), and other courses students on all the college outcomes, even after gender and ethnicity were taken into account."
Whew. I also had to read it three times before I got it. Two footnotes might help. (1) Dual enrollment courses are classes offered to high school students by local colleges, who either invite the students to their campuses or train or send instructors to the high schools to teach courses that can earn college credit. (2) The college outcomes measured in this study included students' first- and fourth-year college grade point averages, the number of college credit hours earned and the percentage of students who graduated from college in four years.
What was most interesting about this study was that it attempted to compare students with similar academic characteristics so that it would be less likely that the results could be explained by the notion that students who took AP courses and exams were just naturally better students than those who did not take AP. As the long sentence above says, the study compared the college outcomes of AP students who had low SAT scores with the outcomes of non-AP students with low SAT scores, and found the AP students did better. Similarly, AP students from low-income families, who often struggle in college, did better than non-AP students from low-income families.
AP exams are graded on a five-point scale. According to College Board vice president and AP director Trevor Packer, a grade of 5 is equivalent to a college A, a 4 is equivalent to a high B, a 3 is a high C, a 2 is a D and a 1 is an F. The College Board gives AP exams to college students who have just completed a college introductory course in the same subject and compares their college grades to what they get on the AP. Some selective colleges give credit only for scores of 4 or 5, but the vast majority of incoming college students, who attend less selective state schools, can get credit for a 3. Often when talking about grades, we AP wonks say 3 to 5 are passing grades and below 3 are failing grades.
On pages 35 and 36 of their report, the Texas researchers revealed what was for me the most interesting of their many new disclosures. They show that even students who only get a 2 on their AP exams after taking the AP course have significantly better college outcomes than non-AP students. Students who get 1s on the exam do not do better than non-AP students, but as I have often heard AP teachers say, they have no chance to build those students up to a 2 or a 3 unless they are allowed in their courses.
These are complicated issues. This study is not the last word. Critics of AP may say that these researchers' work is tainted by the fact that the College Board, which owns the AP program, paid them for their study. But there is no question they are reputable, independent scholars, and their data is there for all to see.
It is extremely rare to have such a study with a sample that large, more than 300,000 living, breathing students. The fact that it confirms what many AP teachers have been seeing in their classes leads me to think that we are getting close to the truth, and that the vast majority of high schools that still bar average students from taking AP, who tell those kids they just aren't ready for a college challenge, should consider how much even struggling students get out of this experience they are denying their kids.
Is AP for All a Formula for Failure?
By Jay Mathews
Monday, June 8, 2009
I spend much time with aggressive Advanced Placement teachers. They tell me, quite often, that students must be stretched beyond their assumed capabilities. Whenever I try to pass on this advice, however, I become a target for ridicule and disbelief from readers.
Here comes more of that stuff. Newsweek unveils this week my annual rankings of America's Top High Schools, with a new twist that skeptics will find even less congenial.
The latest list, to appear on newsweek.com, will include about 1,500 schools that have reached a high standard of participation on college-level AP, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge tests. The bad news is they represent less than 6 percent of U.S. public high schools. The good news is that 73 percent of Washington area schools are on the list. The interesting news is that some of those schools have begun to require AP courses and tests for all students, even those who struggle in class.
Newsweek and The Washington Post use the Challenge Index, which I conceived in 1998 and have been fiddling with since. This time I am adding a separate Catching Up list for high schools that use AP as shock treatment for impoverished students who have been in the academic doldrums. On this new list are 29 schools with AP test participation rates high enough to qualify for the Newsweek list but with test passing rates under 10 percent. Seven are in this area: Coolidge, Bell Multicultural, Friendship Collegiate, SEED, Thurgood Marshall and McKinley Tech in the District, and Crossland in Prince George's County.
Some people might call this the straggler list. I don't. I have spoken to the administrators of many of those schools. What they say makes sense. They have tried raising achievement slowly with remedial education. It didn't work, in part because the teachers and students had no worthy goal to shoot for. So they have made the AP test their benchmark, and in preparing for it hopes to give low- performing students the strenuous academic exercise they need for college. Few pass the three-hour AP exams, so few get college credit. So what? They aren't in college yet. This way they have a chance to accustom themselves to the foot-high reading assignments and torturous exams they will encounter in college.
Each year, more data suggest that this is the right approach. A new study of 302,969 students who graduated from Texas high schools shows that even low-performing students -- those who got a failing grade of 2 on the 5-point AP test -- did significantly better in college than did similarly low- performing, low-income students who did not take AP. Nationally, most high schools are so lax in their duties that half their students heading for college never take an AP, IB or Cambridge course and test and thus have little clue what awaits them.
Many AP teachers I know spend much of their time coaxing such under-served students into their classes. That is true at Bell Multicultural High School, the first public school in this area to require all students to take AP. And not just any AP. They must study AP English Literature and AP English Language, especially difficult for the many children of immigrants at Bell.
Daniel Gordon, a Harvard University Law School graduate I watched teach at Bell last year, said the prospect of a college-level exam is a big motivator for students. One of them, Esmeralda Posadas, said, "It forced students who don't speak English at home to focus all their attention on it. It is not run- of-the-mill." Only three students got a passing score of 3 or higher on the exam in 2007, but Posadas was one of 31 who got a score of 2.
AP teachers with that kind of attitude are not the majority. A recent Fordham Institute survey revealed that only 38 percent of AP teachers believe "the more students taking AP courses, the better," while 52 percent said "only students who can handle the material" should take AP. One of my favorite bloggers, Fairfax County instructional technology specialist Tim Stahmer of assortedstuff.com, frequently says too many unprepared students are being channeled into AP and urged to go to college.
My response is, what harm does that do? They work harder in high school, and if they graduate still determined not to go to college, they will discover that those AP skills are just what they need to get the best available jobs or trade school slots. If they don't take an AP class and test, they will never know whether they could have handled it. Many students from non-college families discover they can. Montgomery County Superintendent Jerry D. Weast has been beefing up instruction in lower grades and luring students into college-level courses for years, with impressive results. The portion of impoverished Montgomery AP students who passed the tests increased from 12.3 percent in 2002 to 22.4 percent in 2006.
The Catching Up schools aren't losers. They are strivers, fueled by the high spirits of teachers who keep telling me how much more their kids can do than they expected. Their schools are exciting. History students are writing an essay every day. English students are publishing books. Those who think this is a good idea are still a beleaguered minority, but we are growing. Watch out.
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