more students taking/passing AP exams

Parents Forum
1

<p>In today's NYT:</p>

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

<p>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. The exams are scored on a five-point scale, and some colleges offer course credit to students who pass, earning a score of 3 or above.</p>

<p>The proportion of students taking the courses has grown slowly but steadily over the last five years, as has the percentage of students with a score of 3 or higher. </p>

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

<p>Black students are far less likely than whites to take or pass an Advanced Placement exam. Over all, black students made up 14 percent of last year’s graduates, but only 7.4 of those taking an A.P. exam, and only 3.3 percent of those passing one.</p>

<p>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 percent of those taking an A.P. exam and 13.6 percent of those passing one. But many of them received that passing grade on the Spanish language exam, and if those results were eliminated, only 7.5 percent would have a passing score.</p>

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

<p>On average, high schools that offer Advanced Placement courses offer 9 of the 37 courses in the College Board program.</p>

<p>Although the mean score 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.</p>

<p>“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 Advanced Placement program.</p>

<p>Mr. Packer said that as the Advanced Placement program has become mainstream, instead of one for relatively few elite students, the number of poorly prepared students scoring a 1 on an exam has grown, while fewer students get a 2, and the number scoring higher has stayed relatively flat. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/education/14exam.html?ref=education%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/education/14exam.html?ref=education&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

2

<p>I am not proud of this. I don't see the good thing of the AP exams when 50% of students scored 2 or lower. Why do we torture the kids?</p>

3

<p>The bar needs to be set high, lest we put more emphasis on students "feeling good" about themselves and their apparent inflated grades as opposed to really striving for real academic excellence.</p>

4

<p>I think I did not make my point clear. I think schools should not let many kids take AP classes. I also think high achieving students should not take too many AP classes; they should save their precious time for something else.</p>

5

<p>The exams are graded on a curve, so if more students are taking them, automatically more will be passing them.</p>

<p>High schools are ranked solely based on number of students taking APs. So there is a lot of "encouragement" out there, even when it is not warranted...</p>

6

<p>
[quote]
I also think high achieving students should not take too many AP classes

[/quote]

Why?? Those kids are bored to death in regular classes!</p>

7

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/461479-letter-editor-princeton-alumni-magazine-about-college-admission-frenzy.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/461479-letter-editor-princeton-alumni-magazine-about-college-admission-frenzy.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>nngmm - See my post #25 on this thread.</p>

8

<p>Many of the statements you are making are correct, but AP classes are usually the best classes HS students can take at their school, with the best teachers and best students. Not all have a access to college classes while in HS, and many can't afford them or fit them into their schedule. </p>

<p>Philosophy? How many high schools offer philosophy classes?</p>

<p>In schools where alternatives are better than the APs, top students often take advantage of them. But usually that is not the case.</p>

9

<p>
[quote]
Philosophy? How many high schools offer philosophy classes?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It does not mean the College Board cannot change their AP program to ask HS to offer philosophy. IB programs also offer some part of philosophy in Theory of Knowledge.</p>

<p>Alternatives to APs: Humanities, creative writing, math/science competitions on state and national levels. This will help students in college in the long run. Also, it does not mean we should be pleased with our existing system. School districts should make arrangement for HS students to take college classes. Classes taken at colleges should have the same weight as AP classes.</p>

10

<p>
[quote]
Classes taken at colleges should have the same weight as AP classes.

[/quote]
I don't agree. Many colleges have courses that are a joke. At least the AP program has a standardized curriculum and the test to measure if the student comes away with a college level understanding of the subject. H.S. Jr D just took a fall course in the evening at a local state U. It was far easier than any coiurse she's had in her three years to date at school. The professor returned the term papers by leaving them in a huge pile. As she flipped through to retrieve hers, she noted that every single paper was given a perfect 20/20 score. Her paper had not a single correction, observation, notation --- she could have handed in nursery rhymes.</p>

<p>Her H.S. doesn't take any outside courses into account, except a few college courses taught at the h.s. and overseen by a local college. Students have to take an exam before being allowed to take each AP course, and every girl must sit for the AP exam. It assures that the class will be made up of only serious students who won't slow the class down.</p>

11

<p>already in college and i have to agree with the mom from sf, ca. took 6 in hs and it added so much time to studying and preparing for the class. started in 10th grade and wish i had not. the b in that class lowered my gpa even with the added points and most aps classes are really not taught on the level of college courses. my s 's school won't take any aps unless 4 or 5 and most have to be 5s for that reason. i have suggested to my younger b to not cram them in like i did but he did anyway and it really have made his senior year stressful.</p>

12

<p>My D took 1 AP class fresh, 1 soph, 4 junior, and she'll have 5 senior year. She's not doing this to load up her schedule; she's also not masochistic. She's bored. Honors classes have become so watered down because the school tells all the kids that they must be striving more, taking more honors, and those who would normally be taking honors need to be taking more AP. So, what she finds in the honors courses are kids who should be in standard courses, and instead of making those students rise to an honors level, teachers have a tendency (and not all ... but a good many) to lower the standard of the class, provide so many mindless busy work projects and extra credit and test corrections to get the grades up. Even with the AP schedule she has ... it's not killing her time wise, not in the least. So far she's gotten 5's on all of the exams. Will see what happens this spring with the four exams she has. I will say that she does miss the amount of electives that her brother had at his High School. Another reason she takes so many AP's is that unless you want to take P.E./chorus/band/art or vo-tech ... there aren't very many elective options for motivated students.</p>

<p>zebes</p>

13

<p>D1 is in her first AP, and it's been interesting comparing (so far) her experience with AP and mine, 3 decades ago. By the end of high school, she will have completed somewhere between 8 and 14 APs. I took five. Her AP (World) has a dedicated, single textbook specifically written for AP students, and there's a study guide for the test. My APUSH course came with 5 or 7 college-level texts, including Richard Hofstadter's classic "The American Political Tradition." There were no study guides. I can't help but feel that the experience has been somewhat diluted in the intervening decades.</p>

<p>D2's school does allow students to take courses at a nearby community college and also at a nearby State U. I gather that the level of rigor varies. I know that some kids take math courses, either to jump a year on algebra or trig, or to go beyond the math offerings. There's also getting rid of the guidance/life skills elective. 30 years back, it was very unusual for high schoolers (in this area, at least) to take college classes. The one big exception was an amazing program run by the local UC, which would actually admit high school students in their senior year if their junior year SATs reached a certain level. You could take up to two courses a quarter at a highly reduced rate, with essentially all the rights and privileges of a regular student at that campus. You then had the option of matriculating to the honors program as a regular, full-time student following your senior year...or you could apply to any UC campus as a transfer student. Talk about a sweet deal! It was an astoundingly effective recruitment tool for bringing in more freshmen with high stats. Wish it was still around. At any rate, some of those courses were harder than some of my APs, and some of my APs were harder than some of those courses.</p>

14

<p>Minnesota allows HS students to enroll in a Post Secondary Enrollment Option (PSEO). You can take the classes at CC, LAC or state U. There is no charge to the student for the classes. I think it is a great option! I tried to get my D to consider it instead of AP classes but she didn't want to be out of the HS and away from her friends yet. I don't see a down side to this as you get dual credit!</p>

15

<p>From Edweek, "AP Trends: Tests Soar, Scores Slip: Gaps between groups spur equity concerns."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/02/20/24ap.h27.html?tmp=683889050%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/02/20/24ap.h27.html?tmp=683889050&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

16

<p>My daughter took 6 APs and they were the best courses she took in high school. She's at an Ivy, so I don't think that the APs influenced her admissions decision, since they see so many APs. The real bonus was all the intro courses she was able to skip once she got to college, it is allowing her to double major and still have a life.</p>

17

<p>StickShock (#10): I don't suggest any college course. Usually only courses beyond the AP classes students have already taken in HS should be allowed. The reason to take college courses must be valid and the courses should be evaluated by the school districts. Some courses in college may be easier than some AP courses, but the statistics shows that 40-50 % of students did not pass the AP exams,... This is the trouble.</p>