By Jay Mathews, Washington Post
May 19, 2011
West Potomac High School in Fairfax County and Oakland Mills High School in Howard County are as close as schools come to being twins. Both are in affluent counties and serve ethnically and economically diverse populations. Forty-seven percent of West Potomac students and 52 percent of Oakland Mills students are black or Hispanic. Thirty-eight percent at West Potomac and 31 percent at Oakland Mills are from low-income families.
But when I indulge in my obsessive comparison of schools by their college-level course programs, significant differences emerge. Oakland Mills often bars students from taking Advanced Placement classes if they don’t have B’s in previous courses. West Potomac lets in everyone who signs up and pays the test fees. The AP test participation rate at West Potomac is three times what it is at Oakland Mills, but the passing rate on tests at the Fairfax school is lower: 61 percent, compared with 78 percent at Oakland Mills.
That wide gap in approaches to challenging courses is why I started rating high schools 13 years ago by how successful they were at giving students a taste of college trauma. In a national context, as college-level programs such as Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate have become the prime means of preparing students for higher education, giving more students those opportunities has become crucial and controversial. Only half of students who go to college get to take college-level courses in high school, which many educators think is fine and others think is wrong. That controversy is one reason my rankings have drawn such attention.
The national list is being published now for the first time by The Washington Post. We call it The High School Challenge.
The idea for the list came to me as I was completing a book about America’s best public high schools. I kept running into the same mindless policy: Schools refused to let average students take the college-level courses and tests, reserving them for the better students. Research and common sense suggested that C students would learn much and be readier for college if they also took AP, but few schools appreciated that.
To illuminate the issue, I began ranking schools in 1998 on participation in AP and IB tests. Later, I added the Cambridge Advanced International Certificate of E ducation exam to what I named the Challenge Index. The national list started that year in Newsweek, the local list in The Post. This year’s national ranking moved to The Post after The Washington Post Co. sold Newsweek last summer.
The Challenge Index calculation is simple. I wanted everyone to be able to understand it and use it. Add up all the AP, IB or AICE tests taken in a given year. Divide by the number of graduating seniors. The target I set is also simple: Every school should reach a ratio of at least 1.000 — that is, as many college-level tests taken as diplomas issued. Any school that does will make my national list, unless its passing rate on those tests is unusually low or the school is unusually selective.
School leaders in Larchmont, N.Y., Winnetka, Ill., Beverly Hills, Calif., and elsewhere were puzzled and annoyed when I began this exercise. Because schools in those places allowed only their best students to take AP, they ranked lower on my list than some daring schools in less-wealthy communities that opened AP to all who wanted to work hard.
By coincidence, Washington area educators began a massive reform of their rules for placing students in college-level courses and tests. Influenced by the same pioneering teachers who had shown me the power of challenging more students, high schools in Northern Virginia, Maryland and the District created in this metropolitan region what continues to be the heaviest concentration of college-level courses in the country.
My list finds that only 1,910 U.S. public high schools, about 7 percent of the nationwide total, meet the target ratio. In the Washington area, 75 percent of public high schools do.
Some other regions do well, but not that well. Numerous school systems, wary of challenging students they believe are unready, hold the view that AP, IB and AICE are appropriate only for those with A or B averages. Some urban schools are discouraged by low test scores and therefore don’t encourage students to take AP.
But in some low-income communities, schools encourage as many students as possible to take AP, even if they rarely pass the exams, so they will get a sense of what college demands.
My method differs from how high schools are usually rated. Some lists use average SAT or ACT scores, state test scores or the percentage of graduates who go to four-year colleges. Those results are often so influenced by family income that you could get similar rankings by averaging the square footage of the students’ homes. Many principals and teachers have told me they prefer a measure such as mine that puts weight on efforts of school staffs to prepare students for college. They say that shows the quality of the school rather than the economic status of the parents and gives schools full of impoverished students a rare opportunity to shine.
The list draws attention in part because readers love rankings of any sort. It also is regularly denounced by educators who say it is wrong to rank schools based on just one number.
One of the most revealing arguments about this was between me and Patrick Welsh, an acclaimed English teacher at Alexandria’s T.C. Williams High School who frequently contributes to The Post. When we debated the issue in Outlook in 2005, Welsh said: “You’ve unwittingly created an out-of-control monster, a smoke and mirrors numbers game, the equivalent of ranking the teams in the NCAA basketball tournament on the basis of the number of players who got in the game, instead of the final score.”
I thought the metaphor worked better for me, since a school does not exist to beat other schools but to raise the achievement of students. Getting a lot of them into games is likely to sharpen their skills.
Welsh said adding students who read way below grade level into AP meant high achievers weren’t being challenged and low achievers were overwhelmed. I said he ought to visit Wakefield High in Arlington County, a five-minute drive from T.C. Williams. The two schools were demographically similar, serving large numbers of black or Hispanic students, many from poor families. Yet Wakefield teachers urged everyone to try AP and got award-winning results. The month after our debate, Wakefield had a Challenge Index rating of 2.030, compared with T.C. Williams’s 1.494. The percentage of AP tests passed by Wakefield students was higher: 51 percent to 39 percent. Thirty-five percent of the graduating Wakefield senior class had passed at least one AP exam, compared with 20 percent at T.C. Williams.
Mike Grill, the AP coordinator at Wakefield, told me then: “I don’t have patience for teachers who make excuses to explain why students can’t learn in their courses. The issue is not ‘why they can’t learn,’ but rather ‘why can’t you teach them?’ ”
Average students barred from AP usually don’t complain. They are used to being overlooked. But a few protest. Kerry Constabile at Mamaroneck High School in the New York City suburbs was upset when her request to take AP American History was denied because she had less than a B in social studies her sophomore year. She assigned the AP course to herself, getting the homework assignments from friends. She got a 3 on the 5-point AP exam. She was convinced that she would have done better had the school let her in the course.
Students in Howard have the same problem. If they don’t have at least a B in 10th-grade social science or a teacher’s recommendation, they can’t take AP U.S. history. Clarissa Evans, the county’s executive director for secondary curricular programs, said, “we have more work to do” in that area. Howard got a College Board award for improving AP access but still trails many other districts.
Frank Eastham, principal of Oakland Mills, said his teachers have been talking about ways to give more students exposure to AP, “but some think we are setting kids up for failure if we let them take a course for which they haven’t gotten the prerequisite class.”
At West Potomac High, AP Coordinator Drew Hamlin said: “We stress that success in AP courses is achievable for all students who are driven to succeed.”
The situation is worse in inner-city schools, where most students fail the AP exams. But those students often lack strong preliminary courses to get ready.
The inspiration for the list came a decade before I started compiling the AP participation data for schools nationwide. In 1987, I had the AP results from just one school — Garfield High in East Los Angeles. Eighty-five percent of the students were from low-income families, and AP courses had been rare. A few teachers changed that by upgrading lower-level courses so students would be ready for AP.
In 1987, 85 of the 129 Garfield students who took an AP calculus exam got a passing score of 3 or better. Amazingly, 26 percent of all Mexican American students in the country who passed an AP Calculus exam that year were from Garfield.
The famous math teacher Jaime Escalante had about half of them, but the other half were taught by Ben Jimenez. He was not a celebrity, just a competent, hard-working educator.
That statistic has haunted me since. I was glad to see the Garfield teachers recognized, but there was a darker side to the data. Why hadn’t the thousands of other schools in the country with underestimated Mexican Americans (or other kinds of students) done what the Garfield teachers had done? What was stopping them?
Take a look at the new national list and you will see which schools are asking themselves that question and trying to do something about it. I wish there were many more schools on the list than there are.
Showing posts with label Advanced Placement courses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Advanced Placement courses. Show all posts
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Advanced Placement courses move from nice add-on to norm on college resumes
By LIAM MIGDAIL-SMITH | The Patriot-News
January 3, 2011
Take the SATs? Check.
Count up activities and community service? Check.
Have three or four college courses already under your belt?
For students hoping to get accepted at higher-end colleges, taking a few Advanced Placement courses — accelerated high school classes that count for college credit depending on how students score on a standardized test — is no longer a nice add-on to college resumes. It’s the norm.
“It’s getting to the point when you don’t see AP courses on a student’s resume, you wonder why,” said Bill Brown, vice president of enrollment at Lebanon Valley College in Annville Township.
Nationally, the Advanced Placement program has grown exponentially since it was introduced in the 1950s.
The number of U.S. students taking AP exams jumped about 50 percent in the last five years, from 1.2 million to 1.8 million, according to the College Board, the agency that oversees AP programs and other standardized testing such as the SATs.
On average, students have access to eight or nine of the 34 AP courses offered by the College Board. They range from calculus to art history.
Several midstate schools are nationally recognized for being far ahead of the pack. Cumberland Valley High School leads with 27 course offerings. That’s more than double the 13 courses the school had in 2005.
Hershey High School offers 21 courses, and West Shore School District’s two high schools each offer 17. Camp Hill High School offers 10, and about half of its students are enrolled in AP courses.
About half of college-bound students take an AP course, said Trevor Packer of the College Board.
“It is very much the norm for students going to selective or highly selective institutions to have taken at least one college-level course,” Packer said.
John Chopka, vice president of enrollment at Messiah College in Upper Allen Township, said AP courses on a resume show a drive to succeed that can be hard to determine from college essays or other parts of an application.
“There’s just a little extra dose of motivation that comes with deciding to take an AP course,” he said.
But can there be too much?
Parents expressed concern at a November Cumberland Valley School Board meeting that the district encouraging AP courses even for freshmen could be stressful for students. The district was looking to cut an honors freshman social studies course so students would be more inclined to take the AP equivalent. There would be an advanced course beyond the college prep track, but it wouldn’t have an honors weight.
Administrators responded to parents’ worries at the meeting by saying that if students are motivated to take the honors course, why not take it a step further with AP?
“The demand of an AP class is similar to a 100-level college class,” said parent Nancy McKinley of Hampden Township. “Developmentally, ninth- and 10th-graders are in a very different place, and it can be very stressful for them.”
McKinley, whose daughter is taking the freshman AP social studies course, said she’s thrilled with the school’s AP program but wants to see other good options for those who aren’t ready to tackle the college-level work.
Kim Clements, a guidance counselor at Cumberland Valley, said most AP courses are offered in the junior and senior years. The honors courses the first two years are designed to prepare students to go into them.
There are students who can take only AP courses, but most of us are not that superhuman, Clements said. It’s important for students to balance their schedules to be rigorous while keeping in mind that college-level courses come with a college-level workload, she said.
“You also don’t want a student to be a basket case of nerves because they’ve overdone it,” Clements said.
The increase in AP programs has brought with it an increase in students overloading and having stress-related issues, she said.
Clements tells her students to home in on their passions. Students should take AP courses in which they’re interested and excel, she said. And when there’s a student doing well in less-difficult courses, she’ll often encourage him to challenge himself and make the jump to AP.
Students say they are happy about AP options but add the classes could be difficult.
“It’s good the school’s really pushing us to take them,” said Cumberland Valley junior Katie Kaplewicz, 16, of Hampden Township. “But sometimes kids take them because they feel they have to, and they don’t really belong in the class.”
Kaplewicz is taking AP English and psychology courses. Her classmate, junior Alison Hellman, said the classes are a few notches above the honors classes she’s taken.
“You definitely have to put more time into the courses,” said Hellman, 17, of Hampden Township.
AP courses carry weight over honors classes on applications because they’re standardized across the board, said Dan Tredinnick, a spokesman for the Derry Township School District. College admissions officers know what’s in an AP course because it’s set by the College Board, versus an honors course that varies from school to school.
“They know they’re looking at apples to apples when they’re comparing different students from different schools,” Tredinnick said.
College admissions officers agree. But they look at the rigor of a student’s schedule as a whole, they added, so it’s fine to have a mix of AP and honors classes.
“I’d rather see a student take a balanced curriculum with some AP courses,” said Brown of Lebanon Valley College.
January 3, 2011
Take the SATs? Check.
Count up activities and community service? Check.
Have three or four college courses already under your belt?
For students hoping to get accepted at higher-end colleges, taking a few Advanced Placement courses — accelerated high school classes that count for college credit depending on how students score on a standardized test — is no longer a nice add-on to college resumes. It’s the norm.
“It’s getting to the point when you don’t see AP courses on a student’s resume, you wonder why,” said Bill Brown, vice president of enrollment at Lebanon Valley College in Annville Township.
Nationally, the Advanced Placement program has grown exponentially since it was introduced in the 1950s.
The number of U.S. students taking AP exams jumped about 50 percent in the last five years, from 1.2 million to 1.8 million, according to the College Board, the agency that oversees AP programs and other standardized testing such as the SATs.
On average, students have access to eight or nine of the 34 AP courses offered by the College Board. They range from calculus to art history.
Several midstate schools are nationally recognized for being far ahead of the pack. Cumberland Valley High School leads with 27 course offerings. That’s more than double the 13 courses the school had in 2005.
Hershey High School offers 21 courses, and West Shore School District’s two high schools each offer 17. Camp Hill High School offers 10, and about half of its students are enrolled in AP courses.
About half of college-bound students take an AP course, said Trevor Packer of the College Board.
“It is very much the norm for students going to selective or highly selective institutions to have taken at least one college-level course,” Packer said.
John Chopka, vice president of enrollment at Messiah College in Upper Allen Township, said AP courses on a resume show a drive to succeed that can be hard to determine from college essays or other parts of an application.
“There’s just a little extra dose of motivation that comes with deciding to take an AP course,” he said.
But can there be too much?
Parents expressed concern at a November Cumberland Valley School Board meeting that the district encouraging AP courses even for freshmen could be stressful for students. The district was looking to cut an honors freshman social studies course so students would be more inclined to take the AP equivalent. There would be an advanced course beyond the college prep track, but it wouldn’t have an honors weight.
Administrators responded to parents’ worries at the meeting by saying that if students are motivated to take the honors course, why not take it a step further with AP?
“The demand of an AP class is similar to a 100-level college class,” said parent Nancy McKinley of Hampden Township. “Developmentally, ninth- and 10th-graders are in a very different place, and it can be very stressful for them.”
McKinley, whose daughter is taking the freshman AP social studies course, said she’s thrilled with the school’s AP program but wants to see other good options for those who aren’t ready to tackle the college-level work.
Kim Clements, a guidance counselor at Cumberland Valley, said most AP courses are offered in the junior and senior years. The honors courses the first two years are designed to prepare students to go into them.
There are students who can take only AP courses, but most of us are not that superhuman, Clements said. It’s important for students to balance their schedules to be rigorous while keeping in mind that college-level courses come with a college-level workload, she said.
“You also don’t want a student to be a basket case of nerves because they’ve overdone it,” Clements said.
The increase in AP programs has brought with it an increase in students overloading and having stress-related issues, she said.
Clements tells her students to home in on their passions. Students should take AP courses in which they’re interested and excel, she said. And when there’s a student doing well in less-difficult courses, she’ll often encourage him to challenge himself and make the jump to AP.
Students say they are happy about AP options but add the classes could be difficult.
“It’s good the school’s really pushing us to take them,” said Cumberland Valley junior Katie Kaplewicz, 16, of Hampden Township. “But sometimes kids take them because they feel they have to, and they don’t really belong in the class.”
Kaplewicz is taking AP English and psychology courses. Her classmate, junior Alison Hellman, said the classes are a few notches above the honors classes she’s taken.
“You definitely have to put more time into the courses,” said Hellman, 17, of Hampden Township.
AP courses carry weight over honors classes on applications because they’re standardized across the board, said Dan Tredinnick, a spokesman for the Derry Township School District. College admissions officers know what’s in an AP course because it’s set by the College Board, versus an honors course that varies from school to school.
“They know they’re looking at apples to apples when they’re comparing different students from different schools,” Tredinnick said.
College admissions officers agree. But they look at the rigor of a student’s schedule as a whole, they added, so it’s fine to have a mix of AP and honors classes.
“I’d rather see a student take a balanced curriculum with some AP courses,” said Brown of Lebanon Valley College.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Leave No Bubble Blank
Also check out another article previously posted to this blog titled, Rethinking Advanced Placement. Some important technical changes being made as we gear up for a national conversation on K-12 college readiness standards. Already occurring here in Texas, by the way.
-Patricia
By INYOUNG KANG | NY Times
Published: January 7, 2011
IF you don’t know the answer, guess.
Come May, the next sitting for Advanced Placement exams, the College Board is switching to right-only scoring: each correct answer counts; no deductions for wrong ones. By guessing, you have a 20 or 25 percent chance of getting it right, depending on the number of answer choices.
The new scoring mirrors other standardized tests, except the SAT. A wrong answer there comes with a 0.25-point deduction. The College Board, which owns both tests, is changing only A.P.
Psychometricians advised that right-only scoring would simplify year-to-year comparisons as new exams are phased in, according to Trevor Packer, vice president responsible for Advanced Placement.
-Patricia
By INYOUNG KANG | NY Times
Published: January 7, 2011
IF you don’t know the answer, guess.
Come May, the next sitting for Advanced Placement exams, the College Board is switching to right-only scoring: each correct answer counts; no deductions for wrong ones. By guessing, you have a 20 or 25 percent chance of getting it right, depending on the number of answer choices.
The new scoring mirrors other standardized tests, except the SAT. A wrong answer there comes with a 0.25-point deduction. The College Board, which owns both tests, is changing only A.P.
Psychometricians advised that right-only scoring would simplify year-to-year comparisons as new exams are phased in, according to Trevor Packer, vice president responsible for Advanced Placement.
Rethinking Advanced Placement
By CHRISTOPHER DREW | NY Times
Published: January 7, 2011
WHEN Joan Carlson started teaching high school biology more than 30 years ago, the Advanced Placement textbook was daunting enough, at 36 chapters and 870 pages. But as an explosion of research into cells and genes reshapes our sense of how life evolves, the flood of new material has been staggering. Mrs. Carlson’s A.P. class in Worcester, Mass., now confronts a book with 56 chapters and 1,400 pages, along with a profusion of animated videos and Web-based aids that supplement the text.
And what fuels the panic is that nearly every tongue-twisting term and microscopic fact is fair game for the year-end test that decides who will receive college credit for the course.
“Some of the students look at the book and say, ‘My gosh, it’s just like an encyclopedia,’ ” Mrs. Carlson says. And when new A.P. teachers encounter it, “they almost want to start sobbing.”
As A.P. has proliferated, spreading to more than 30 subjects with 1.8 million students taking 3.2 million tests, the program has won praise for giving students an early chance at more challenging work. But many of the courses, particularly in the sciences and history, have also been criticized for overwhelming students with facts to memorize and then rushing through important topics. Students and educators alike say that biology, with 172,000 test-takers this year, is one of the worst offenders.
A.P. teachers have long complained that lingering for an extra 10 or 15 minutes on a topic can be a zero-sum game, squeezing out something else that needs to be covered for the exam. PowerPoint lectures are the rule. The homework wears down many students. And studies show that most schools do the same canned laboratory exercises, providing little sense of the thrill of scientific discovery.
All that, says the College Board, is about to change.
Next month, the board, the nonprofit organization that owns the A.P. exams as well as the SAT, will release a wholesale revamping of A.P. biology as well as United States history — with 387,000 test-takers the most popular A.P. subject. A preview of the changes shows that the board will slash the amount of material students need to know for the tests and provide, for the first time, a curriculum framework for what courses should look like. The goal is to clear students’ minds to focus on bigger concepts and stimulate more analytic thinking. In biology, a host of more creative, hands-on experiments are intended to help students think more like scientists.
The changes, which are to take effect in the 2012-13 school year, are part of a sweeping redesign of the entire A.P. program. Instead of just providing teachers with a list of points that need to be covered for the exams, the College Board will create these detailed standards for each subject and create new exams to match.
Trevor Packer, the College Board’s vice president for Advanced Placement, notes that the changes mark a new direction for the board, which has focused on the tests more than the courses. The rollout of “the New A.P.,” as the board describes it, will actually start this year with a new curriculum taking effect in two smaller programs, German and French language. Major revisions to physics, chemistry, European history, world history and art history will follow, with the hope of being ready for exams in 2014 or 2015.
“We really believe that the New A.P. needs to be anchored in a curriculum that focuses on what students need to be able to do with their knowledge,” Mr. Packer says. A.P. teachers made clear that such a shift was impossible unless the breadth of material covered was pared down. Courses in English and math are manageable, Mr. Packer says, and will not be revised until later.
The new approach is important because critical thinking skills are considered essential for advanced college courses and jobs in today’s information-based economy. College administrators and veteran A.P. teachers familiar with the new biology curriculum believe the changes could have significant reverberations for how science is taught in introductory college classes and even elementary school classrooms, and might bring some of the excitement back to science learning.
And here is one indication of how pumped up the College Board is about the revitalization: If Mr. Packer were a high school junior next year, would he take the old A.P. biology or wait till his senior year for the new one?
“I would absolutely wait,” he says.
WHEN A.P. testing began in 1956, memorization was not yet a dirty word, and it was O.K. if history classes ran out of time just after they finished World War II.
The College Board created the first exams at the behest of elite preparatory schools, which wanted to convince colleges that their best students could dart right into advanced work. The board based the exams on what colleges taught in freshman survey courses. As the testing expanded over the next several decades, the board began providing a brief description of college-course themes and breaking down the percentage of those courses — and thus the A.P. exam — devoted to each topic. But it was up to each high school to flesh out its own curriculum.
And it did not take long for instructors to start teaching to the test, treating the board’s outline as the holy grail for helping students achieve the scores of 3 or higher, out of 5, that might earn credit from a college.
That obviously became harder to do as breakthroughs in genetic research and cellular organization, and momentous events like the cold war, the civil rights movement, Watergate and the war on terror, began to elbow their way onto the lists. College professors could pick and choose what to cover in their introductory survey classes. But because the A.P. test can touch on almost anything, high school juniors and seniors must now absorb more material than most college freshmen.
So perhaps it is no surprise that while the number of students taking the A.P. biology test has more than doubled since 1997, the median score has dropped to 2.63, from 3.18. On the exam last May, slightly fewer than half of the test-takers scored a 3, which equates to a C in a college course. And while 19 percent of students earned 5’s, almost twice that many got 1’s, which could be a failing grade in college.
A committee of the National Research Council, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, called attention to these problems in 2002. It criticized A.P. science courses for cramming in too much material and failing to let students design their own lab experiments. It also said the courses had failed to keep pace with research on how people learn: instead of listening to lectures, “more real learning takes place if students spend more time going into greater depth on fewer topics, allowing them to experience problem solving, controversies and the subtleties of scholarly investigation.”
A few top universities have become more choosey about giving credit. In 2007, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for instance, stopped giving credit for A.P. biology, and developed its own placement exam. Stuart Schmill, M.I.T.’s dean of admissions, says the biology department found that even some of the students who scored 5’s did not have the problem-solving skills needed for higher-level courses. The University of Texas has also tightened its rules for biology placement, giving credit for 5’s only, though many large universities still accept 4’s or 3’s.
Several elite private high schools have also dropped A.P. courses. In defiance, the public school district in Scarsdale, N.Y., created its own in-depth courses called Advanced Topics. (For college credit, students still have to do well on the A.P. or another placement exam.)
The College Board took the criticisms to heart, and has been working with hundreds of college professors and high school teachers to develop the new approach.
For biology, the change means paring down the entire field to four big ideas. The first is a simple statement that evolution “drives the diversity and unity of life.” The others emphasize the systematic nature of all living things: that they use energy and molecular building blocks to grow; respond to information essential to life processes; and interact in complex ways. Under each of these thoughts, a 61-page course framework lays out the most crucial knowledge students need to absorb.
And to the delight of teachers who have gotten an early peek at the plans, the board also makes clear what will not be on the exam. Part or all of at least 20 of the 56 chapters in the A.P. biology book that Mrs. Carlson’s class uses will no longer need to be covered. (One PowerPoint slide explaining the changes notes sardonically that teachers can retire their swift marches through the “Organ of the Day.”)
Similarly, the new plans divide United States history into nine time periods and seven overarching themes. But instead of requiring students to memorize the dates of the Pequot War — which, for those of you who forgot, occurred from 1634 to 1638 and eliminated the Pequot tribe in what is now Connecticut — teachers will have more leeway to focus on different events in teaching students how to craft historical arguments.
Scarsdale High School sees some synchronicity. “It appears to be clearly much more in line with what we are trying to emphasize this year,” says Beth Schoenbrun, the school’s’ co-director of Science Research. “It certainly seems to allow for a good deal more flexibility in terms of what is covered in the classroom.”
William Wood, who teaches biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, was a key member of the National Research Council panel that criticized A.P. science. He says now: “I like the way they’ve tried to make it clear what the boundaries are, what they want students to actually remember and what can be left out.” He says he’s “pretty impressed” with what he’s seen so far.
MRS. CARLSON, who teaches A.P. bio at the Bancroft School, an affluent, private academy in central Massachusetts, has always made her lab an inviting place. A chalk-white skeleton watches over the students. So does Al, a rare clear gummy bear, in a paper-clip chair, surrounded by presents from students who view his lack of color as analogous to genetic mutations. He has a bag of mud from the Dead Sea, trinkets from Mount Fuji and a model of a fish from Bermuda.
Mrs. Carlson knows she is fortunate to have a board of directors that will buy whatever equipment she needs for the lab and a generous nine class periods a week for her A.P. course. Many teachers have to cover all the material in just five or six periods, and some must hold their labs after school or on holidays, if they have them at all — thanks to insufficient slots during the school day, and too many after-school activities.
Mrs. Carlson says several students drop her class each year after they realize how hard it will be. She is also frustrated by the predictable nature of many of the “dirty dozen,” the teachers’ nickname for the basic lab exercises now recommended by the College Board. In one that her class did last fall, the students looked at pre-stained slides of onion root tips to identify the stages of cell division and calculate the duration of the phases.
She and her students, who historically score 4’s and 5’s on the exam, were one of several schools asked by the College Board to road test one of the proposed new labs to see if it brought back the “Oh, wow!” factor.
The basic question: What factors affect the rate of photosynthesis in living plants? The new twist: Instead of being guided through the process, groups of two or three students had to dream up their own hypotheses and figure out how to test them.
Caroline Brown, a senior who stages the school’s plays, connected the lab to her passion for theater. She borrowed green, sky blue and “Broadway pink” filters from the playhouse to test how different shades of light affected photosynthesis in sunken spinach leaves. The pink surprised her by narrowly edging out the blue in triggering photosynthesis.
Ms. Brown had started to take both A.P. biology and A.P. United States history as a junior, but says she quickly realized that school counselors were right in warning “that’s one combination that will just about kill you.” So she stuck with history and went back to biology this year.
Robert Turley, a junior, created little disks of spinach with a hole puncher and dropped them into two beakers. He and his partner thought photosynthesis would occur more quickly in a slightly acidic solution, prompting those disks to shoot to the surface. But as they watched through safety goggles, all 10 of the disks in the basic solution rose, while none of disks in the more acidic solution budged.
“So for this lab, our hypothesis was actually wrong,” he says. “But it definitely felt more like a lab that would be done like a scientist in the real world than the other labs we’ve done.”
Even though Alyssa Kotin’s experiment was inconclusive, she and her partner presented a colorful poster with a graph of their findings to the class, just as the other groups did, to stimulate more discussion.
College Board officials say the new labs should help students learn how to frame scientific questions and assemble data, and the exam will measure how well they can apply those skills. When the new test is unveiled in 2013, biology students will need, for the first time, to use calculators, just as A.P. chemistry and physics students do. The board plans to cut the number of multiple-choice questions nearly in half on the new test, to 55. It will add five questions based on math calculations, and it will more than double the number of free-response questions, to nine.
“There won’t be any more questions like: here is a plant, and what is this tissue?” says Professor Uno of the University of Oklahoma, who is helping to decide what will be asked. Instead, early samples show that the multiple-choice questions will be more complex. They will require students to read short passages, or look at graphs, and pick the answers that explain why something happened or that predict what will occur next.
One sample essay question provides a chart with the heights of plants growing in either sunlight or shade and a graph that misinterprets the results. Students must decipher what went wrong, re-plot the data and design a better experiment to determine which grew faster.
WHILE many educators agree with the tack A.P. is taking, they also recognize that the change is going to be difficult for many teachers and schools.
Athena Vangos, who teaches A.P. biology at a public high school in Leicester, Mass., a blue-collar town where many students have part-time jobs, loves the idea of less memorization and more conceptual thinking. As is the case with many public schools, hers does not limit A.P. courses to only the top students. So while six of her students earned 4’s or 5’s on the exam last May, six others “just throw up their hands” at the amount of work and settled for 1’s.
While Ms. Vangos believes the program could inspire students who “like to think outside the box,” she worries that the new math requirements will discourage others. And with so many cutbacks these days in education budgets, she says, the need to improve lab facilities at many public schools “is absolutely going to pose a big problem.” Labs in resource-strapped urban schools often don’t have enough of even basic tools, like dissecting microscopes, for their students.
Studies indicate that relatively few high schools have laboratories equivalent to those used in first-year college courses. Professor Uno says that the new A.P. lab experiments will rely mostly on the same equipment as the old ones, and that program designers will provide “some low-cost alternatives where we can.”
Another concern is how well teachers — across the full range of A.P. subjects — will adjust to an approach that will require them to give up some control and let the students dictate more about where the class discussions go. Mr. Packer says the College Board is investing substantial resources in creating professional-development programs and online tools to help teachers make that transition.
In many ways, the changes will complete a broad turn for the College Board, from its origins as a purveyor of tests to a much more deliberate arbiter of what the nation’s top students will study. Its exams had already set that agenda indirectly, of course, and turned A.P. classes into a way of life for top students.
Yet as the board trumpets its new plans, it is also acknowledging how much the process had gotten out of hand. Students will still have to put in long hours, and there is no sign that the arms race will slow among students trying to pile up as many A.P. classes as they can to impress college admissions offices.
But, Mr. Packer says, the College Board supports the idea of schools’ placing limits on the number of A.P. classes students can take. And, he says, it sees the new courses as a step toward relieving some of the burdens.
The New A.P.
Advanced Placement is being redesigned to test more conceptual understanding. Click below for examples of the types of questions that will be found on the new U.S. history and biology tests.
Sample Questions: A.P. U.S. History»
Sample Questions: A.P. Biology »
Published: January 7, 2011
WHEN Joan Carlson started teaching high school biology more than 30 years ago, the Advanced Placement textbook was daunting enough, at 36 chapters and 870 pages. But as an explosion of research into cells and genes reshapes our sense of how life evolves, the flood of new material has been staggering. Mrs. Carlson’s A.P. class in Worcester, Mass., now confronts a book with 56 chapters and 1,400 pages, along with a profusion of animated videos and Web-based aids that supplement the text.
And what fuels the panic is that nearly every tongue-twisting term and microscopic fact is fair game for the year-end test that decides who will receive college credit for the course.
“Some of the students look at the book and say, ‘My gosh, it’s just like an encyclopedia,’ ” Mrs. Carlson says. And when new A.P. teachers encounter it, “they almost want to start sobbing.”
As A.P. has proliferated, spreading to more than 30 subjects with 1.8 million students taking 3.2 million tests, the program has won praise for giving students an early chance at more challenging work. But many of the courses, particularly in the sciences and history, have also been criticized for overwhelming students with facts to memorize and then rushing through important topics. Students and educators alike say that biology, with 172,000 test-takers this year, is one of the worst offenders.
A.P. teachers have long complained that lingering for an extra 10 or 15 minutes on a topic can be a zero-sum game, squeezing out something else that needs to be covered for the exam. PowerPoint lectures are the rule. The homework wears down many students. And studies show that most schools do the same canned laboratory exercises, providing little sense of the thrill of scientific discovery.
All that, says the College Board, is about to change.
Next month, the board, the nonprofit organization that owns the A.P. exams as well as the SAT, will release a wholesale revamping of A.P. biology as well as United States history — with 387,000 test-takers the most popular A.P. subject. A preview of the changes shows that the board will slash the amount of material students need to know for the tests and provide, for the first time, a curriculum framework for what courses should look like. The goal is to clear students’ minds to focus on bigger concepts and stimulate more analytic thinking. In biology, a host of more creative, hands-on experiments are intended to help students think more like scientists.
The changes, which are to take effect in the 2012-13 school year, are part of a sweeping redesign of the entire A.P. program. Instead of just providing teachers with a list of points that need to be covered for the exams, the College Board will create these detailed standards for each subject and create new exams to match.
Trevor Packer, the College Board’s vice president for Advanced Placement, notes that the changes mark a new direction for the board, which has focused on the tests more than the courses. The rollout of “the New A.P.,” as the board describes it, will actually start this year with a new curriculum taking effect in two smaller programs, German and French language. Major revisions to physics, chemistry, European history, world history and art history will follow, with the hope of being ready for exams in 2014 or 2015.
“We really believe that the New A.P. needs to be anchored in a curriculum that focuses on what students need to be able to do with their knowledge,” Mr. Packer says. A.P. teachers made clear that such a shift was impossible unless the breadth of material covered was pared down. Courses in English and math are manageable, Mr. Packer says, and will not be revised until later.
The new approach is important because critical thinking skills are considered essential for advanced college courses and jobs in today’s information-based economy. College administrators and veteran A.P. teachers familiar with the new biology curriculum believe the changes could have significant reverberations for how science is taught in introductory college classes and even elementary school classrooms, and might bring some of the excitement back to science learning.
And here is one indication of how pumped up the College Board is about the revitalization: If Mr. Packer were a high school junior next year, would he take the old A.P. biology or wait till his senior year for the new one?
“I would absolutely wait,” he says.
WHEN A.P. testing began in 1956, memorization was not yet a dirty word, and it was O.K. if history classes ran out of time just after they finished World War II.
The College Board created the first exams at the behest of elite preparatory schools, which wanted to convince colleges that their best students could dart right into advanced work. The board based the exams on what colleges taught in freshman survey courses. As the testing expanded over the next several decades, the board began providing a brief description of college-course themes and breaking down the percentage of those courses — and thus the A.P. exam — devoted to each topic. But it was up to each high school to flesh out its own curriculum.
And it did not take long for instructors to start teaching to the test, treating the board’s outline as the holy grail for helping students achieve the scores of 3 or higher, out of 5, that might earn credit from a college.
That obviously became harder to do as breakthroughs in genetic research and cellular organization, and momentous events like the cold war, the civil rights movement, Watergate and the war on terror, began to elbow their way onto the lists. College professors could pick and choose what to cover in their introductory survey classes. But because the A.P. test can touch on almost anything, high school juniors and seniors must now absorb more material than most college freshmen.
So perhaps it is no surprise that while the number of students taking the A.P. biology test has more than doubled since 1997, the median score has dropped to 2.63, from 3.18. On the exam last May, slightly fewer than half of the test-takers scored a 3, which equates to a C in a college course. And while 19 percent of students earned 5’s, almost twice that many got 1’s, which could be a failing grade in college.
A committee of the National Research Council, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, called attention to these problems in 2002. It criticized A.P. science courses for cramming in too much material and failing to let students design their own lab experiments. It also said the courses had failed to keep pace with research on how people learn: instead of listening to lectures, “more real learning takes place if students spend more time going into greater depth on fewer topics, allowing them to experience problem solving, controversies and the subtleties of scholarly investigation.”
A few top universities have become more choosey about giving credit. In 2007, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for instance, stopped giving credit for A.P. biology, and developed its own placement exam. Stuart Schmill, M.I.T.’s dean of admissions, says the biology department found that even some of the students who scored 5’s did not have the problem-solving skills needed for higher-level courses. The University of Texas has also tightened its rules for biology placement, giving credit for 5’s only, though many large universities still accept 4’s or 3’s.
Several elite private high schools have also dropped A.P. courses. In defiance, the public school district in Scarsdale, N.Y., created its own in-depth courses called Advanced Topics. (For college credit, students still have to do well on the A.P. or another placement exam.)
The College Board took the criticisms to heart, and has been working with hundreds of college professors and high school teachers to develop the new approach.
For biology, the change means paring down the entire field to four big ideas. The first is a simple statement that evolution “drives the diversity and unity of life.” The others emphasize the systematic nature of all living things: that they use energy and molecular building blocks to grow; respond to information essential to life processes; and interact in complex ways. Under each of these thoughts, a 61-page course framework lays out the most crucial knowledge students need to absorb.
And to the delight of teachers who have gotten an early peek at the plans, the board also makes clear what will not be on the exam. Part or all of at least 20 of the 56 chapters in the A.P. biology book that Mrs. Carlson’s class uses will no longer need to be covered. (One PowerPoint slide explaining the changes notes sardonically that teachers can retire their swift marches through the “Organ of the Day.”)
Similarly, the new plans divide United States history into nine time periods and seven overarching themes. But instead of requiring students to memorize the dates of the Pequot War — which, for those of you who forgot, occurred from 1634 to 1638 and eliminated the Pequot tribe in what is now Connecticut — teachers will have more leeway to focus on different events in teaching students how to craft historical arguments.
Scarsdale High School sees some synchronicity. “It appears to be clearly much more in line with what we are trying to emphasize this year,” says Beth Schoenbrun, the school’s’ co-director of Science Research. “It certainly seems to allow for a good deal more flexibility in terms of what is covered in the classroom.”
William Wood, who teaches biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, was a key member of the National Research Council panel that criticized A.P. science. He says now: “I like the way they’ve tried to make it clear what the boundaries are, what they want students to actually remember and what can be left out.” He says he’s “pretty impressed” with what he’s seen so far.
MRS. CARLSON, who teaches A.P. bio at the Bancroft School, an affluent, private academy in central Massachusetts, has always made her lab an inviting place. A chalk-white skeleton watches over the students. So does Al, a rare clear gummy bear, in a paper-clip chair, surrounded by presents from students who view his lack of color as analogous to genetic mutations. He has a bag of mud from the Dead Sea, trinkets from Mount Fuji and a model of a fish from Bermuda.
Mrs. Carlson knows she is fortunate to have a board of directors that will buy whatever equipment she needs for the lab and a generous nine class periods a week for her A.P. course. Many teachers have to cover all the material in just five or six periods, and some must hold their labs after school or on holidays, if they have them at all — thanks to insufficient slots during the school day, and too many after-school activities.
Mrs. Carlson says several students drop her class each year after they realize how hard it will be. She is also frustrated by the predictable nature of many of the “dirty dozen,” the teachers’ nickname for the basic lab exercises now recommended by the College Board. In one that her class did last fall, the students looked at pre-stained slides of onion root tips to identify the stages of cell division and calculate the duration of the phases.
She and her students, who historically score 4’s and 5’s on the exam, were one of several schools asked by the College Board to road test one of the proposed new labs to see if it brought back the “Oh, wow!” factor.
The basic question: What factors affect the rate of photosynthesis in living plants? The new twist: Instead of being guided through the process, groups of two or three students had to dream up their own hypotheses and figure out how to test them.
Caroline Brown, a senior who stages the school’s plays, connected the lab to her passion for theater. She borrowed green, sky blue and “Broadway pink” filters from the playhouse to test how different shades of light affected photosynthesis in sunken spinach leaves. The pink surprised her by narrowly edging out the blue in triggering photosynthesis.
Ms. Brown had started to take both A.P. biology and A.P. United States history as a junior, but says she quickly realized that school counselors were right in warning “that’s one combination that will just about kill you.” So she stuck with history and went back to biology this year.
Robert Turley, a junior, created little disks of spinach with a hole puncher and dropped them into two beakers. He and his partner thought photosynthesis would occur more quickly in a slightly acidic solution, prompting those disks to shoot to the surface. But as they watched through safety goggles, all 10 of the disks in the basic solution rose, while none of disks in the more acidic solution budged.
“So for this lab, our hypothesis was actually wrong,” he says. “But it definitely felt more like a lab that would be done like a scientist in the real world than the other labs we’ve done.”
Even though Alyssa Kotin’s experiment was inconclusive, she and her partner presented a colorful poster with a graph of their findings to the class, just as the other groups did, to stimulate more discussion.
College Board officials say the new labs should help students learn how to frame scientific questions and assemble data, and the exam will measure how well they can apply those skills. When the new test is unveiled in 2013, biology students will need, for the first time, to use calculators, just as A.P. chemistry and physics students do. The board plans to cut the number of multiple-choice questions nearly in half on the new test, to 55. It will add five questions based on math calculations, and it will more than double the number of free-response questions, to nine.
“There won’t be any more questions like: here is a plant, and what is this tissue?” says Professor Uno of the University of Oklahoma, who is helping to decide what will be asked. Instead, early samples show that the multiple-choice questions will be more complex. They will require students to read short passages, or look at graphs, and pick the answers that explain why something happened or that predict what will occur next.
One sample essay question provides a chart with the heights of plants growing in either sunlight or shade and a graph that misinterprets the results. Students must decipher what went wrong, re-plot the data and design a better experiment to determine which grew faster.
WHILE many educators agree with the tack A.P. is taking, they also recognize that the change is going to be difficult for many teachers and schools.
Athena Vangos, who teaches A.P. biology at a public high school in Leicester, Mass., a blue-collar town where many students have part-time jobs, loves the idea of less memorization and more conceptual thinking. As is the case with many public schools, hers does not limit A.P. courses to only the top students. So while six of her students earned 4’s or 5’s on the exam last May, six others “just throw up their hands” at the amount of work and settled for 1’s.
While Ms. Vangos believes the program could inspire students who “like to think outside the box,” she worries that the new math requirements will discourage others. And with so many cutbacks these days in education budgets, she says, the need to improve lab facilities at many public schools “is absolutely going to pose a big problem.” Labs in resource-strapped urban schools often don’t have enough of even basic tools, like dissecting microscopes, for their students.
Studies indicate that relatively few high schools have laboratories equivalent to those used in first-year college courses. Professor Uno says that the new A.P. lab experiments will rely mostly on the same equipment as the old ones, and that program designers will provide “some low-cost alternatives where we can.”
Another concern is how well teachers — across the full range of A.P. subjects — will adjust to an approach that will require them to give up some control and let the students dictate more about where the class discussions go. Mr. Packer says the College Board is investing substantial resources in creating professional-development programs and online tools to help teachers make that transition.
In many ways, the changes will complete a broad turn for the College Board, from its origins as a purveyor of tests to a much more deliberate arbiter of what the nation’s top students will study. Its exams had already set that agenda indirectly, of course, and turned A.P. classes into a way of life for top students.
Yet as the board trumpets its new plans, it is also acknowledging how much the process had gotten out of hand. Students will still have to put in long hours, and there is no sign that the arms race will slow among students trying to pile up as many A.P. classes as they can to impress college admissions offices.
But, Mr. Packer says, the College Board supports the idea of schools’ placing limits on the number of A.P. classes students can take. And, he says, it sees the new courses as a step toward relieving some of the burdens.
The New A.P.
Advanced Placement is being redesigned to test more conceptual understanding. Click below for examples of the types of questions that will be found on the new U.S. history and biology tests.
Sample Questions: A.P. U.S. History»
Sample Questions: A.P. Biology »
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Advanced Placement: Good for top students, oversold to others?
By Scott Jaschik | Inside Higher Ed
March 30, 2010
The Advanced Placement program is becoming more and more popular, with 25% of high school graduates taking at least one AP examination, elite colleges expecting to see applicants' transcripts full of the courses, and politicians demanding that more and more high schools offer them. The program has become "the juggernaut of American high school education," according to the introduction to a new book, AP: A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program.
The book, about to be released by Harvard Education Press, is the result of a 2007 conference at Harvard University that brought together leading education researchers to consider the evidence about AP. Despite the immense popularity of the program, the research evidence on its value is minimal, the book argues. The College Board, the program's sponsor, publishes or promotes its own research (favoring the program) and promotes "glowing accounts" of AP. But is this really the consensus?
STATE BY STATE: Failure rate for AP tests climbing
SUCCESS STORY: Maryland makes huge strides in AP scores
The research presented in the book — believed to be the most comprehensive gathering of studies to date — is decidedly mixed. Those who distrust AP out of a dislike of programs built around standardized tests won't find smoking guns about the test itself here. In fact, the research in the book suggests high levels of consistency and validity in the program's exams.
Further, the research studies in the book suggest that for most well-prepared students (and, increasingly, it is important to note that not all students in the program are well-prepared), AP tends to offer rigorous courses that advance their knowledge of the subject matter in meaningful ways. (One caution that the book notes about its findings is that they focus on the mathematics and science parts of AP, which have been the subject of more long-term study.)
But proponents of the program's rapid expansion come in for some tough criticism in the book. Claims that the program helps students graduate on time or save money are found generally to have no validity. And research in the book suggests that many of the efforts to push the program into more schools — a push that has been financed with many millions in state and federal funds — may be paying for poorly-prepared students to fail courses they shouldn't be taking in the first place. And the research suggests that not only is the money being misspent, but that the push may be skewing the decisions of low-income high schools that make adjustments to bring the program in — while being unable to afford improvements in other programs.
The book is frank throughout on the difficulties of conducting research on the program. High schools can't create control groups by giving some students AP courses and other students some sort of placebo version. And the student body for the courses is anything but random. Even with the growth in recent years, the AP courses are much more widely available in high schools that serve wealthier, well-prepared students. And students themselves opt to take or not take the courses, with self-selection drawing in better students.
As a result, several of the studies in the book say, while the College Board's claims that students who do well in the courses are likely to do well in college are true, that means very little. It's sort of like saying that students who are well-prepared to do college work and come from the socioeconomic groups that do the best in college are going to do well in college. Not a shocker.
But, using a variety of statistical tools, the various papers attempt to overcome the limitations in evaluating the program.
The analyses of the programs themselves suggest that AP students get a strong experience in high schools with good resources and high levels of student preparation. In part, this is because of the characteristics of the courses that need not be restricted to the AP program — factors like smaller class size and top teachers. But the verdict on such courses in a series of studies is favorable.
'Very rigorous'
As summed up by Philip Sadler, one of the co-editors of the volume and the F.W. Wright Senior Lecturer in Astronomy at Harvard, here is the outlook for students: "Advanced Placement courses offer you an opportunity to study a subject in a very rigorous and demanding fashion. You will probably be in a class that has fewer students, those students will likely have stronger backgrounds, and there will be fewer student discipline issues than you have experienced in other courses. Your teacher will have a strong subject matter background and excellent teaching skills."
Similarly, Sadler sums up the situation from the perspective of college admissions officers, and tells them that they are correct to assume that success in the courses is a meaningful measure of academic achievements (although he is quick to add that there are equally valid measures, such as success in other rigorous high school courses and dual enrollment programs in which high school students simultaneously take college courses).
But where Sadler's summary will challenge the College Board and others is in his description of the emphasis on expanding the program to serve more and more high schools. While the College Board shows no sign of pulling back from that goal, Sadler writes that the research evidence suggests that the growth has reached a point of "diminishing returns."
That conclusion is consistent with journalistic investigations of the program in the last year, in USA Today and The Dallas Morning News, documenting increased failure rates on the program's tests. In both cases, the articles focused on an increase in the number of students failing the program's tests.
The College Board largely dismissed the findings of both of those investigations, saying that students benefit even if they don't pass and that the many benefits of the program show it deserves even more growth. But research in the new book by Kristin Klopfenstein of the University of Texas at Dallas and M. Kathleen Thomas of Mississippi State University raises questions about those premises.
In one chapter, Klopfenstein and Thomas examine whether states should push — as the College Board has urged them to do — to have AP courses in all high schools, and to add to offerings whenever they can. They note assertions by Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, that increasing the number of students who take courses in the program would encourage more students to go to college and improve their graduation rates once enrolled.
Klopfenstein and Thomas conclude that there is no evidence to back up these claims. They write that the flaw in the College Board's analysis is its failure to focus on "causation." When the researchers control for a variety of factors related to college-going and college success (such as student demographics, other courses taken, etc.), they find, the boost allegedly provided by the AP courses evaporates. "AP students are college-bound to begin with," they write. While taking AP courses may make some students more attractive to competitive colleges, they add, that is more of a benefit to the student than to society, raising questions about spending a lot of money to expand the program.
And in fact, they note a range of real costs to school districts for the program — costs that may be of particular concern in low-income districts. The program's courses almost always have smaller class sizes and some of the best teachers in a school. While the College Board boasts about the benefits for the students in the program, these same facts mean that the rest of a school's students have larger classes and less time with the best teachers.
Financing failure
That all might be justified if those in the program were achieving great success. But with the expansion, that's not the case — and there are large sums of money being spent on students who don't succeed, they write.
In California, they note, $2.8 million in federal funds are used to subsidize AP tests for students. With 41% of students failing, that means at least $1.1 million was spent on such students — with the number likely much higher since the failure rate and need for subsidies is greater for low-income students.
Similarly, William Lichten, a professor emeritus of physics, engineering and applied science at Yale University, writes about the growth of AP in the Philadelphia public schools — an effort supported by a variety of public funds. He writes that the success stories in the district come from high schools that, while serving low-income students, use selective admissions. Among other high schools, failure rates are high. "Many of these high schools did not have a single AP exam score as high as 3, the lowest score claimed as passing by the College Board," Lichten writes.
In some of the strongest criticism of the College Board in the book, Lichten questions why the College Board does not publicize the success rates of students school by school, in ways that might raise questions about the significant investments made in the program at schools where budgets are very much a zero-sum game and the program is showing no signs of success.
In an interview, Trevor Packer, who leads AP for the College Board, generally offered praise for the new book. He said that it was "tremendously stimulating and meaningful," and that the editors and contributors had performed a real service by significantly expanding the available research on the program and synthesizing it in the new volume.
Generally, he said he views the book as saying that "AP is doing a good job of performing its original purpose" of providing rigorous courses and of helping to place students at appropriate levels as they start their college careers. He said he viewed the questions raised in the book as less about those functions than about "uses of AP that have emerged, particularly over the last decade."
The research in the book "shows that AP does a good job of doing what it set out to do," he said.
As to the criticisms in the book, Packer said he saw it focused on the "boosterism" about AP, and said, "I think there is something about the boosterism that I stand behind and some boosterism that I find flaws with."
He said that he has tried himself and has urged others to talk about AP not as allowing many students to finish college early, but as a tool for giving them more "flexibility" in designing their curriculum. (In fairness to Packer, he is less boosterish in the various College Board briefings about AP than is his boss, and than some government officials who want the program expanded.)
On the larger questions about the program's growth, he said he agreed with the idea that there should be more study of the benefits of the program as it moves into more schools, including those that — based on socioeconomics — don't do well. But he said he was troubled by the idea that the program may already be at "diminishing returns" because he still sees many high schools where the socioeconomics and educational background suggest that success would occur, but that don't have the program or have only limited offerings.
The College Board has generally argued in the past that students benefit even at schools with low passage rates. But Packer, while insisting that there was much success in low-income districts, also said: "In schools where they are seeing all scores of 1, I would agree wholeheartedly that resources might be better spent on middle schools."
At the same time, he said that reaching more low-income students who can succeed will mean some increases in failure rates. As a result, he said it is hard to tell just how much the program should grow. "What is the right threshold that AP should reach? What is the right [rate at which students succeed] of threshold?" he asked. "That's a really good question."
March 30, 2010
The Advanced Placement program is becoming more and more popular, with 25% of high school graduates taking at least one AP examination, elite colleges expecting to see applicants' transcripts full of the courses, and politicians demanding that more and more high schools offer them. The program has become "the juggernaut of American high school education," according to the introduction to a new book, AP: A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program.
The book, about to be released by Harvard Education Press, is the result of a 2007 conference at Harvard University that brought together leading education researchers to consider the evidence about AP. Despite the immense popularity of the program, the research evidence on its value is minimal, the book argues. The College Board, the program's sponsor, publishes or promotes its own research (favoring the program) and promotes "glowing accounts" of AP. But is this really the consensus?
STATE BY STATE: Failure rate for AP tests climbing
SUCCESS STORY: Maryland makes huge strides in AP scores
The research presented in the book — believed to be the most comprehensive gathering of studies to date — is decidedly mixed. Those who distrust AP out of a dislike of programs built around standardized tests won't find smoking guns about the test itself here. In fact, the research in the book suggests high levels of consistency and validity in the program's exams.
Further, the research studies in the book suggest that for most well-prepared students (and, increasingly, it is important to note that not all students in the program are well-prepared), AP tends to offer rigorous courses that advance their knowledge of the subject matter in meaningful ways. (One caution that the book notes about its findings is that they focus on the mathematics and science parts of AP, which have been the subject of more long-term study.)
But proponents of the program's rapid expansion come in for some tough criticism in the book. Claims that the program helps students graduate on time or save money are found generally to have no validity. And research in the book suggests that many of the efforts to push the program into more schools — a push that has been financed with many millions in state and federal funds — may be paying for poorly-prepared students to fail courses they shouldn't be taking in the first place. And the research suggests that not only is the money being misspent, but that the push may be skewing the decisions of low-income high schools that make adjustments to bring the program in — while being unable to afford improvements in other programs.
The book is frank throughout on the difficulties of conducting research on the program. High schools can't create control groups by giving some students AP courses and other students some sort of placebo version. And the student body for the courses is anything but random. Even with the growth in recent years, the AP courses are much more widely available in high schools that serve wealthier, well-prepared students. And students themselves opt to take or not take the courses, with self-selection drawing in better students.
As a result, several of the studies in the book say, while the College Board's claims that students who do well in the courses are likely to do well in college are true, that means very little. It's sort of like saying that students who are well-prepared to do college work and come from the socioeconomic groups that do the best in college are going to do well in college. Not a shocker.
But, using a variety of statistical tools, the various papers attempt to overcome the limitations in evaluating the program.
The analyses of the programs themselves suggest that AP students get a strong experience in high schools with good resources and high levels of student preparation. In part, this is because of the characteristics of the courses that need not be restricted to the AP program — factors like smaller class size and top teachers. But the verdict on such courses in a series of studies is favorable.
'Very rigorous'
As summed up by Philip Sadler, one of the co-editors of the volume and the F.W. Wright Senior Lecturer in Astronomy at Harvard, here is the outlook for students: "Advanced Placement courses offer you an opportunity to study a subject in a very rigorous and demanding fashion. You will probably be in a class that has fewer students, those students will likely have stronger backgrounds, and there will be fewer student discipline issues than you have experienced in other courses. Your teacher will have a strong subject matter background and excellent teaching skills."
Similarly, Sadler sums up the situation from the perspective of college admissions officers, and tells them that they are correct to assume that success in the courses is a meaningful measure of academic achievements (although he is quick to add that there are equally valid measures, such as success in other rigorous high school courses and dual enrollment programs in which high school students simultaneously take college courses).
But where Sadler's summary will challenge the College Board and others is in his description of the emphasis on expanding the program to serve more and more high schools. While the College Board shows no sign of pulling back from that goal, Sadler writes that the research evidence suggests that the growth has reached a point of "diminishing returns."
That conclusion is consistent with journalistic investigations of the program in the last year, in USA Today and The Dallas Morning News, documenting increased failure rates on the program's tests. In both cases, the articles focused on an increase in the number of students failing the program's tests.
The College Board largely dismissed the findings of both of those investigations, saying that students benefit even if they don't pass and that the many benefits of the program show it deserves even more growth. But research in the new book by Kristin Klopfenstein of the University of Texas at Dallas and M. Kathleen Thomas of Mississippi State University raises questions about those premises.
In one chapter, Klopfenstein and Thomas examine whether states should push — as the College Board has urged them to do — to have AP courses in all high schools, and to add to offerings whenever they can. They note assertions by Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, that increasing the number of students who take courses in the program would encourage more students to go to college and improve their graduation rates once enrolled.
Klopfenstein and Thomas conclude that there is no evidence to back up these claims. They write that the flaw in the College Board's analysis is its failure to focus on "causation." When the researchers control for a variety of factors related to college-going and college success (such as student demographics, other courses taken, etc.), they find, the boost allegedly provided by the AP courses evaporates. "AP students are college-bound to begin with," they write. While taking AP courses may make some students more attractive to competitive colleges, they add, that is more of a benefit to the student than to society, raising questions about spending a lot of money to expand the program.
And in fact, they note a range of real costs to school districts for the program — costs that may be of particular concern in low-income districts. The program's courses almost always have smaller class sizes and some of the best teachers in a school. While the College Board boasts about the benefits for the students in the program, these same facts mean that the rest of a school's students have larger classes and less time with the best teachers.
Financing failure
That all might be justified if those in the program were achieving great success. But with the expansion, that's not the case — and there are large sums of money being spent on students who don't succeed, they write.
In California, they note, $2.8 million in federal funds are used to subsidize AP tests for students. With 41% of students failing, that means at least $1.1 million was spent on such students — with the number likely much higher since the failure rate and need for subsidies is greater for low-income students.
Similarly, William Lichten, a professor emeritus of physics, engineering and applied science at Yale University, writes about the growth of AP in the Philadelphia public schools — an effort supported by a variety of public funds. He writes that the success stories in the district come from high schools that, while serving low-income students, use selective admissions. Among other high schools, failure rates are high. "Many of these high schools did not have a single AP exam score as high as 3, the lowest score claimed as passing by the College Board," Lichten writes.
In some of the strongest criticism of the College Board in the book, Lichten questions why the College Board does not publicize the success rates of students school by school, in ways that might raise questions about the significant investments made in the program at schools where budgets are very much a zero-sum game and the program is showing no signs of success.
In an interview, Trevor Packer, who leads AP for the College Board, generally offered praise for the new book. He said that it was "tremendously stimulating and meaningful," and that the editors and contributors had performed a real service by significantly expanding the available research on the program and synthesizing it in the new volume.
Generally, he said he views the book as saying that "AP is doing a good job of performing its original purpose" of providing rigorous courses and of helping to place students at appropriate levels as they start their college careers. He said he viewed the questions raised in the book as less about those functions than about "uses of AP that have emerged, particularly over the last decade."
The research in the book "shows that AP does a good job of doing what it set out to do," he said.
As to the criticisms in the book, Packer said he saw it focused on the "boosterism" about AP, and said, "I think there is something about the boosterism that I stand behind and some boosterism that I find flaws with."
He said that he has tried himself and has urged others to talk about AP not as allowing many students to finish college early, but as a tool for giving them more "flexibility" in designing their curriculum. (In fairness to Packer, he is less boosterish in the various College Board briefings about AP than is his boss, and than some government officials who want the program expanded.)
On the larger questions about the program's growth, he said he agreed with the idea that there should be more study of the benefits of the program as it moves into more schools, including those that — based on socioeconomics — don't do well. But he said he was troubled by the idea that the program may already be at "diminishing returns" because he still sees many high schools where the socioeconomics and educational background suggest that success would occur, but that don't have the program or have only limited offerings.
The College Board has generally argued in the past that students benefit even at schools with low passage rates. But Packer, while insisting that there was much success in low-income districts, also said: "In schools where they are seeing all scores of 1, I would agree wholeheartedly that resources might be better spent on middle schools."
At the same time, he said that reaching more low-income students who can succeed will mean some increases in failure rates. As a result, he said it is hard to tell just how much the program should grow. "What is the right threshold that AP should reach? What is the right [rate at which students succeed] of threshold?" he asked. "That's a really good question."
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Is AP for All A Formula For Failure?
By Jay Mathews | Washington Post
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 hope 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
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 hope 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
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Blacks Less Likely to Take A.P. Exam
Check out the full report.
-Patricia
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: February 4, 2009
More than 15 percent of the three million students who graduated from public high schools last year passed at least one Advanced Placement exam, the College Board said Wednesday, but African-American students were still far less likely to have passed, or to even have taken, an A.P. exam than white, Hispanic or Asian students.
In its fifth annual report on its A.P. program, the College Board said the program was growing steadily. More than 460,000 students, or 15.2 percent, passed an A.P. exam last year, compared with 14.1 percent in 2007 and 12.2 percent five years ago.
But the program is not spreading evenly across the nation. In Mississippi and Louisiana, fewer than 4 percent of high school graduates passed an A.P. exam last year, and in 17 other states, fewer than 10 percent passed one.
At the other end of the spectrum, in Maryland and New York, the states with the most active Advanced Placement programs, more than 23 percent of high school graduates passed an exam. And California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Virginia also had at least one in five graduates pass an A.P. exam last year.
The A.P. program offers high school students the chance to do college-level work in dozens of subjects and, if they pass the exams, to receive college credit at many universities. The exams are marked on a scale of one to five, with a three needed to pass.
But as in most aspects of American education, troubling ethnic gaps remain. African-Americans are seriously underrepresented in the A.P. program, and no state has yet closed that gap, said Gaston Caperton, the president of the College Board.
While 14 percent of last year’s high school graduates were black, they made up only 8 percent of those taking A.P. exams — and only 4 percent of those with passing scores. White students, at 63 percent of graduates, and Hispanics, at 15 percent, were nearly proportionately represented in the A.P. population. Asian students were overrepresented, making up 5 percent of graduates, but 10 percent of those taking A.P. exams.
Low-income students made up 17 percent of those who took A.P. exams last year, up from 16.2 percent in 2007, the report said.
This year, given the recession, Mr. Caperton stressed the economic benefits of the program.
“In these times of economic distress, as family budgets are squeezed and financial aid resources are spread thin, rigorous courses like A.P. that prepare students for the demands of college and foster an increased likelihood of on-time graduation can be a very valuable resource for families,” he said.
With a minority graduating from college in four years, A.P. credits can cut college costs by bolstering on-time graduation. For an out-of-state student at a public four-year university, the extra cost of taking six years to complete an undergraduate degree averages more than $58,000, the College Board said, while even five years for an in-state student costs an extra $18,000.
-Patricia
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: February 4, 2009
More than 15 percent of the three million students who graduated from public high schools last year passed at least one Advanced Placement exam, the College Board said Wednesday, but African-American students were still far less likely to have passed, or to even have taken, an A.P. exam than white, Hispanic or Asian students.
In its fifth annual report on its A.P. program, the College Board said the program was growing steadily. More than 460,000 students, or 15.2 percent, passed an A.P. exam last year, compared with 14.1 percent in 2007 and 12.2 percent five years ago.
But the program is not spreading evenly across the nation. In Mississippi and Louisiana, fewer than 4 percent of high school graduates passed an A.P. exam last year, and in 17 other states, fewer than 10 percent passed one.
At the other end of the spectrum, in Maryland and New York, the states with the most active Advanced Placement programs, more than 23 percent of high school graduates passed an exam. And California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Virginia also had at least one in five graduates pass an A.P. exam last year.
The A.P. program offers high school students the chance to do college-level work in dozens of subjects and, if they pass the exams, to receive college credit at many universities. The exams are marked on a scale of one to five, with a three needed to pass.
But as in most aspects of American education, troubling ethnic gaps remain. African-Americans are seriously underrepresented in the A.P. program, and no state has yet closed that gap, said Gaston Caperton, the president of the College Board.
While 14 percent of last year’s high school graduates were black, they made up only 8 percent of those taking A.P. exams — and only 4 percent of those with passing scores. White students, at 63 percent of graduates, and Hispanics, at 15 percent, were nearly proportionately represented in the A.P. population. Asian students were overrepresented, making up 5 percent of graduates, but 10 percent of those taking A.P. exams.
Low-income students made up 17 percent of those who took A.P. exams last year, up from 16.2 percent in 2007, the report said.
This year, given the recession, Mr. Caperton stressed the economic benefits of the program.
“In these times of economic distress, as family budgets are squeezed and financial aid resources are spread thin, rigorous courses like A.P. that prepare students for the demands of college and foster an increased likelihood of on-time graduation can be a very valuable resource for families,” he said.
With a minority graduating from college in four years, A.P. credits can cut college costs by bolstering on-time graduation. For an out-of-state student at a public four-year university, the extra cost of taking six years to complete an undergraduate degree averages more than $58,000, the College Board said, while even five years for an in-state student costs an extra $18,000.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Orange County group wants AP scores restored
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out given this is a highly affluent school.
-Patricia
Parents and youths act after testing services nullify 385 students' results because at least 10 cheated and some test proctors were seen sleeping or reading.
By Carla Rivera, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 11, 2008
Calling themselves Justice for 375, a group of Orange County parents and students says it's ready to fight a decision to cancel the high schoolers' Advanced Placement test scores amid allegations of numerous testing violations at the school.
They gathered at a Rancho Santa Margarita park Wednesday evening to protest actions by the College Board and the Educational Testing Service to invalidate the scores of 690 college-level exams taken in May by hundreds of Trabuco Hills High School students.
By the end of the evening, they had a plan to mount public and legal pressure to force the testing agencies to reinstate scores for students who say they are innocent of cheating and fear that the score cancellations will jeopardize years of study.
It is one of the largest AP test imbroglios in a decade, according to the Educational Testing Service, and perhaps the most memorable in Southern California since 1982, when the scores of more than a dozen students in Jaime Escalante's AP calculus class at Garfield High School were invalidated because of suspected cheating. The students retook the exams and passed, and the events were later turned into the film "Stand and Deliver."
Parents and students are pointing fingers at Trabuco Hills High officials for mismanaging the exams taken by 385 students in early May. They say there were insufficient proctors in exam rooms and there was inadequate monitoring of students, who were allowed to sit too close together and face one another. Some proctors were seen reading or sleeping, and some left the rooms, according to students.
Amid the alleged lax attention, 10 students later conceded having cheated on statistics and macroeconomics exams by using cellphones to send text messages. Use of electronic devices is not allowed in rooms.
The Mission Viejo school, meanwhile, has reassigned an assistant principal who had been in charge of administering the exams, and it might mete out more punishment.
The Saddleback Valley Unified School District is weighing its legal options, consulting counsel for the Orange County Department of Education in advance of a third appeal to the testing agencies to reconsider their decision.
In a statement released Thursday, district Supt. Steven L. Fish said that "the arbitrary decision by the Educational Testing Service to cancel all student scores for 10 different Advanced Placement [exams] is of great magnitude and affects nearly 400 students."
"It is overly punitive and devastating to Trabuco Hills High School, the district and this community. While we admit some mistakes were made, to punish innocent groups of students is unprofessional and unnecessary."
Dan McClure, 18, who started a Facebook website group for disgruntled parents and students and was appointed a co-chairman of Justice for 375, said six of his AP scores -- macro and microeconomics, biology, English, chemistry and statistics -- were nullified. AP exams test college-level work in 22 subject areas that can earn students credit and advanced placement at most colleges and universities.
"At first I thought, No, this can't be serious," the UC Berkeley-bound McClure said. "I was mad to say the least; I had to get people together. The only way we can do this is to show them that they can't walk all over us."
But the group will face a tough road. The Princeton, N.J.-based Educational Testing Service, which administers AP exams, the SAT and other tests for the College Board, insisted Thursday that reinstating the scores was off the table, setting up a classic showdown with irate parents who see trusted educational institutions -- in this case the testing agencies and the school -- letting them down.
"For some of these students, it's the difference between entering college as a freshman or a sophomore," said David McClure, Dan's father. "It's a first year of college credits; that's how much it's going to cost these students."
Retesting has been scheduled for the week of Aug. 11. But many parents and students say the dates conflict with long-planned vacations and other commitments. Many say it will be difficult to prepare, again, for the tests.
Roger Faubel said that in a celebratory gesture, his daughter Alex, 18, burned the notes for four exams whose scores were subsequently canceled.
"Nobody has told the students how they're going to get their primary textbooks to study," he said, noting that most school offices are closed and teachers are away for the summer. "If they are going to do something, they need to do something to help the students soon."
It's definitely unfortunate, said Testing Service spokesman Jason Baran. The vast majority of students were honest, he conceded. If there had just been cheating, he said, only those students' scores would be affected. But rampant irregularities at the test site left the agency no choice.
"Because of the overwhelming number of irregularities, the possibility exists that cheating was much more widespread," he said. "When it comes to reporting scores back to students, high schools and universities, we need to have scores that we can confidently stand behind. These students did not test under standardized conditions that were fair and secure."
Robert Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, a Cambridge, Mass., organization that promotes fair and equal testing, said the Trabuco Hills incident reflected a general weakness in the nation's testing system.
Most test proctors are teachers, guidance counselors and coaches who typically are underpaid for their time and may not take testing too seriously, Schaeffer said. "A basic notion of standardized tests is that the exams are given in the same manner everywhere, and in fact one hears all kinds of stories of huge differences in the quality of proctoring."
Linda Riley, whose daughter Shauna, 18, is headed to the University of San Diego, said parents and students would not go down without a fight.
"It's a sad hit for kids who studied so hard for 13 years and, honestly, don't deserve to be treated this way," Riley said.
-Patricia
Parents and youths act after testing services nullify 385 students' results because at least 10 cheated and some test proctors were seen sleeping or reading.
By Carla Rivera, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 11, 2008
Calling themselves Justice for 375, a group of Orange County parents and students says it's ready to fight a decision to cancel the high schoolers' Advanced Placement test scores amid allegations of numerous testing violations at the school.
They gathered at a Rancho Santa Margarita park Wednesday evening to protest actions by the College Board and the Educational Testing Service to invalidate the scores of 690 college-level exams taken in May by hundreds of Trabuco Hills High School students.
By the end of the evening, they had a plan to mount public and legal pressure to force the testing agencies to reinstate scores for students who say they are innocent of cheating and fear that the score cancellations will jeopardize years of study.
It is one of the largest AP test imbroglios in a decade, according to the Educational Testing Service, and perhaps the most memorable in Southern California since 1982, when the scores of more than a dozen students in Jaime Escalante's AP calculus class at Garfield High School were invalidated because of suspected cheating. The students retook the exams and passed, and the events were later turned into the film "Stand and Deliver."
Parents and students are pointing fingers at Trabuco Hills High officials for mismanaging the exams taken by 385 students in early May. They say there were insufficient proctors in exam rooms and there was inadequate monitoring of students, who were allowed to sit too close together and face one another. Some proctors were seen reading or sleeping, and some left the rooms, according to students.
Amid the alleged lax attention, 10 students later conceded having cheated on statistics and macroeconomics exams by using cellphones to send text messages. Use of electronic devices is not allowed in rooms.
The Mission Viejo school, meanwhile, has reassigned an assistant principal who had been in charge of administering the exams, and it might mete out more punishment.
The Saddleback Valley Unified School District is weighing its legal options, consulting counsel for the Orange County Department of Education in advance of a third appeal to the testing agencies to reconsider their decision.
In a statement released Thursday, district Supt. Steven L. Fish said that "the arbitrary decision by the Educational Testing Service to cancel all student scores for 10 different Advanced Placement [exams] is of great magnitude and affects nearly 400 students."
"It is overly punitive and devastating to Trabuco Hills High School, the district and this community. While we admit some mistakes were made, to punish innocent groups of students is unprofessional and unnecessary."
Dan McClure, 18, who started a Facebook website group for disgruntled parents and students and was appointed a co-chairman of Justice for 375, said six of his AP scores -- macro and microeconomics, biology, English, chemistry and statistics -- were nullified. AP exams test college-level work in 22 subject areas that can earn students credit and advanced placement at most colleges and universities.
"At first I thought, No, this can't be serious," the UC Berkeley-bound McClure said. "I was mad to say the least; I had to get people together. The only way we can do this is to show them that they can't walk all over us."
But the group will face a tough road. The Princeton, N.J.-based Educational Testing Service, which administers AP exams, the SAT and other tests for the College Board, insisted Thursday that reinstating the scores was off the table, setting up a classic showdown with irate parents who see trusted educational institutions -- in this case the testing agencies and the school -- letting them down.
"For some of these students, it's the difference between entering college as a freshman or a sophomore," said David McClure, Dan's father. "It's a first year of college credits; that's how much it's going to cost these students."
Retesting has been scheduled for the week of Aug. 11. But many parents and students say the dates conflict with long-planned vacations and other commitments. Many say it will be difficult to prepare, again, for the tests.
Roger Faubel said that in a celebratory gesture, his daughter Alex, 18, burned the notes for four exams whose scores were subsequently canceled.
"Nobody has told the students how they're going to get their primary textbooks to study," he said, noting that most school offices are closed and teachers are away for the summer. "If they are going to do something, they need to do something to help the students soon."
It's definitely unfortunate, said Testing Service spokesman Jason Baran. The vast majority of students were honest, he conceded. If there had just been cheating, he said, only those students' scores would be affected. But rampant irregularities at the test site left the agency no choice.
"Because of the overwhelming number of irregularities, the possibility exists that cheating was much more widespread," he said. "When it comes to reporting scores back to students, high schools and universities, we need to have scores that we can confidently stand behind. These students did not test under standardized conditions that were fair and secure."
Robert Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, a Cambridge, Mass., organization that promotes fair and equal testing, said the Trabuco Hills incident reflected a general weakness in the nation's testing system.
Most test proctors are teachers, guidance counselors and coaches who typically are underpaid for their time and may not take testing too seriously, Schaeffer said. "A basic notion of standardized tests is that the exams are given in the same manner everywhere, and in fact one hears all kinds of stories of huge differences in the quality of proctoring."
Linda Riley, whose daughter Shauna, 18, is headed to the University of San Diego, said parents and students would not go down without a fight.
"It's a sad hit for kids who studied so hard for 13 years and, honestly, don't deserve to be treated this way," Riley said.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Spanish proficiency helps student to go far
By TERRY WEBSTER
Star-Telegram staff writer
October 21, 2007
HURST -- L.D. Bell High School sophomore Mady Escamilla is one of hundreds of native Spanish-speakers in the Hurst-Euless-Bedford district.
But unlike most of her peers, Escamilla scored a 5 -- the highest possible score -- on an Advanced Placement Spanish exam while she was a freshman at Hurst Junior High School.
The course and the exam, typically given to high school juniors and seniors, requires students to do college-level work, school officials said.
Escamilla's score was high enough to earn her college credit.
It's all part of the state AP Spanish Language Middle School Program.
"The purpose of the class is to encourage students who would never think of taking an AP class, and to give them that confidence once they do well," said Bettye Edgington, H-E-B advanced academics coordinator.
The passing rate of native Spanish-speakers taking the AP Spanish exam is much higher than the passing rate of Anglo students taking the AP English exam, Edgington said.
Escamilla, 14, arrived in the U.S. from Mexico about nine years ago knowing no English. Today, one cannot tell that she was not born and raised here.
"It was pretty tough getting used to everybody and the brand-new culture," she said. "It made it easier that we were in bilingual classes."
Escamilla said an older brother, then in middle school, struggled more than she did because there was no formal program for Spanish-speakers.
At Hurst Junior High, teachers noticed Escamilla's talent for writing and higher-level thinking skills, such as those required in the AP curriculum.
Early in the ninth grade, teachers encouraged her to switch to the AP Spanish class.
"They told me they were going to work with me, and by the end of the year, I would take the [AP] exam," Escamilla said. "I spoke Spanish at home every day, but it's not like I practiced writing and everything."
The end-of-course exam covers grammar, correct verb usage, and writing and speaking Spanish, Escamilla said. Those who score high can receive college credit.
"I really wasn't worried throughout the whole year, but when the day came, and everybody was expecting so much, I wondered, 'What if I don't really meet their expectations?'" she said.
But she exceeded them.
"She was exhausted," said Billie Grawunder, a Spanish teacher at Hurst Junior High. "It was mentally very challenging for her."
Escamilla was among 20 students chosen for the pilot year of the program last year. This year, the district has added 26 ninth-graders, Grawunder said. Scores from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills are used to select the students.
This year, Escamilla is taking classes that will prepare her for the district's International Baccalaureate program, and she may take the IB exam in Spanish this year, allowing her the chance to earn additional college credit.
Escamilla was also among about 20 students from Dallas-Fort Worth who were chosen to meet former Mexican President Vicente Fox when he traveled to the area this month.
"I do owe a lot to my teachers," she said. "I've had some pretty good ones."
Mady Escamilla
Age: 14
Hometown: Hurst
Education: Sophomore at L.D. Bell High School
Family: Mother, Lorena; stepfather, Eliseo; two brothers, Rodrigo, 17, a senior at Bell; and Misael, 18, a college student
Hobbies: Art and photography
Star-Telegram staff writer
October 21, 2007
HURST -- L.D. Bell High School sophomore Mady Escamilla is one of hundreds of native Spanish-speakers in the Hurst-Euless-Bedford district.
But unlike most of her peers, Escamilla scored a 5 -- the highest possible score -- on an Advanced Placement Spanish exam while she was a freshman at Hurst Junior High School.
The course and the exam, typically given to high school juniors and seniors, requires students to do college-level work, school officials said.
Escamilla's score was high enough to earn her college credit.
It's all part of the state AP Spanish Language Middle School Program.
"The purpose of the class is to encourage students who would never think of taking an AP class, and to give them that confidence once they do well," said Bettye Edgington, H-E-B advanced academics coordinator.
The passing rate of native Spanish-speakers taking the AP Spanish exam is much higher than the passing rate of Anglo students taking the AP English exam, Edgington said.
Escamilla, 14, arrived in the U.S. from Mexico about nine years ago knowing no English. Today, one cannot tell that she was not born and raised here.
"It was pretty tough getting used to everybody and the brand-new culture," she said. "It made it easier that we were in bilingual classes."
Escamilla said an older brother, then in middle school, struggled more than she did because there was no formal program for Spanish-speakers.
At Hurst Junior High, teachers noticed Escamilla's talent for writing and higher-level thinking skills, such as those required in the AP curriculum.
Early in the ninth grade, teachers encouraged her to switch to the AP Spanish class.
"They told me they were going to work with me, and by the end of the year, I would take the [AP] exam," Escamilla said. "I spoke Spanish at home every day, but it's not like I practiced writing and everything."
The end-of-course exam covers grammar, correct verb usage, and writing and speaking Spanish, Escamilla said. Those who score high can receive college credit.
"I really wasn't worried throughout the whole year, but when the day came, and everybody was expecting so much, I wondered, 'What if I don't really meet their expectations?'" she said.
But she exceeded them.
"She was exhausted," said Billie Grawunder, a Spanish teacher at Hurst Junior High. "It was mentally very challenging for her."
Escamilla was among 20 students chosen for the pilot year of the program last year. This year, the district has added 26 ninth-graders, Grawunder said. Scores from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills are used to select the students.
This year, Escamilla is taking classes that will prepare her for the district's International Baccalaureate program, and she may take the IB exam in Spanish this year, allowing her the chance to earn additional college credit.
Escamilla was also among about 20 students from Dallas-Fort Worth who were chosen to meet former Mexican President Vicente Fox when he traveled to the area this month.
"I do owe a lot to my teachers," she said. "I've had some pretty good ones."
Mady Escamilla
Age: 14
Hometown: Hurst
Education: Sophomore at L.D. Bell High School
Family: Mother, Lorena; stepfather, Eliseo; two brothers, Rodrigo, 17, a senior at Bell; and Misael, 18, a college student
Hobbies: Art and photography
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
High School Principal in L.A. Sparks Student, Staff Protests
Linda Jacobson / EdWeek
Published Online: August 20, 2007
A Los Angeles school with a reputation for violence is embroiled in another type of controversy—this time involving some of its teachers and highest-achieving students.
The storm erupted in mid-July when, according to students and teachers, Vincent Carbino, the principal of Santee Education Complex, dropped or changed numerous courses—including some Advance Placement offerings—in the middle of the semester, even though some students will need those classes in order to graduate.
Teachers allege that the principal cancelled the courses without warning in advance of a scheduled inspection required by state legislation known as the Williams settlement, because textbooks for the courses had never been ordered and teachers had not been trained.
Morale is now so bad that some teachers are considering filing a petition with the district’s board of education to convert to a charter school, said Jose Lara, a history teacher at Santee and a union representative for United Teachers Los Angeles, an affiliate of both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.
Tracy Mallozzi, a spokeswoman at Green Dot Public Schools, a Los Angeles-based charter schools organization, confirmed that preliminary conversations with Santee teachers have taken place.
Earlier this year, some teachers at Locke Senior High School, another low-performing high school in Los Angeles, signed petitions asking the school board to have Locke converted to a charter under Green Dot, which is opening small high schools in Watts, the neighborhood served by Locke. ("L.A. District Faces Mounting Pressure Over High Schools,", July 18, 2007.)
“If things don’t get better soon, many teachers are going to go that route,” said Mr. Lara. “It’s been a roller coaster ever since.”
A former police officer, Mr. Carbino was brought in a year after the school opened in 2005 to address safety concerns as well as academic performance. He refused to be interviewed for this article.
But Los Angeles Unified School District officials say they are trying to work with students and teachers to calm the situation. The district also denies charges that the number of AP courses at Santee has been reduced. Instead, they say that Mr. Carbino increased AP offerings from two last school year to 13 this year.
“It’s a fairly small group of teachers and students who are engaging in these protests,” said Hilda Ramirez, a spokeswoman for the 708,000-student district.
Troubled Campus
antee opened two years ago under then-Superintendent Roy Romer and was supposed to be a symbol of educational renewal in a low-income community. Instead, the campus has been known for fighting, crime, and teacher turnover.
“It’s been a disaster from day one,” said Jordan Henry, an English teacher and a union official.
The latest controversy appears to stem from inspections required under the 2004 settlement that ended a lawsuit called Williams v. California, in which plaintiffs argued that many schools, particularly those in low-income neighborhoods, were lacking basic necessities such as textbooks, clean and safe facilities, and properly credentialed teachers. ("Improvements Seen to California Schools As Result of Williams Case Settlement," Aug. 13, 2007.)
The mandated inspections, conducted by county offices of education throughout the state, include a textbook audit to make sure students have the books they need.
Mr. Lara said no one was alerted to the course changes made in advance of the Williams inspections. Teachers found out, he said, when they logged on to their computers to take attendance and saw that the names of the courses they were teaching had changed. In some cases, AP courses were replaced with regular courses, he said.
Police escorted one teacher who complained about the unexpected changes from the building, according to Mr. Lara. Since then, dramatic photos and videos of students protesting in the auditorium and outside the building, chanting “Fire Carbino,” have shown up in local news reports and on Web sites. And this week, students and parents were planning a march through the neighborhood to voice their concerns.
“I’m not going to receive [AP] credit,” said 12th grader Araceli Aca, who says her AP English class was changed to a course called Writing Seminar. “My mom is really furious because she hasn’t been able to get any answers.”
District Response
The district denies claims that the number of AP courses at Santee has been reduced. In a written statement, Carmen Schroeder, the superintendent of Local District 5, which includes Santee and is located in South Los Angeles, said the principal added the writing courses to help students pass AP exams.
The school also is part of a new partnership with Los Angeles Trade Technical College and the University of California, Irvine that allows students to graduate with both a diploma and college credit, or even an associate’s degree. Ms. Schroeder called the arrangement “a wonderful opportunity for the South Los Angeles community that has traditionally had very little access—or financial means—to college.”
But Mr. Lara argues that students at the school—which has three academic calendars, or tracks—don’t have equal access to AP courses. Most of the new AP courses, he said, are available only to those on the A track, which most closely follows a traditional school calendar. The students that started school July 2, before the changes were made, are on the B track.
A chart he has compiled shows that 35 classes, primarily English classes, have been changed, and more than 850 students have been affected.
In spite of the latest controversy, Ms. Schroeder expressed support for Mr. Carbino.
“I believe that everyone at Santee has the same goal: providing students with a rigorous and relevant education that will prepare them for college and careers,” her statement said.
Ms. Ramirez, the district spokeswoman, also said the principal has worked with students on conflict resolution and peer-to-peer counseling. And a profile of the principal published last year in the Los Angeles Times discussed his determination to keep the school from being taken over by the state because of low test scores.
But A.J. Duffy, UTLA’s president, said he doesn’t blame Santee’s staff for talking to charter school operators about leaving the district.
“Do I want that? No. Do I understand? Yes,” he said, adding strong words for Los Angeles Unified Superintendent David Brewer III. “If he doesn’t remove and fire [Carbino], he’s going to have another Green Dot school, and he’s going to be superintendent of nothing.”
Published Online: August 20, 2007
A Los Angeles school with a reputation for violence is embroiled in another type of controversy—this time involving some of its teachers and highest-achieving students.
The storm erupted in mid-July when, according to students and teachers, Vincent Carbino, the principal of Santee Education Complex, dropped or changed numerous courses—including some Advance Placement offerings—in the middle of the semester, even though some students will need those classes in order to graduate.
Teachers allege that the principal cancelled the courses without warning in advance of a scheduled inspection required by state legislation known as the Williams settlement, because textbooks for the courses had never been ordered and teachers had not been trained.
Morale is now so bad that some teachers are considering filing a petition with the district’s board of education to convert to a charter school, said Jose Lara, a history teacher at Santee and a union representative for United Teachers Los Angeles, an affiliate of both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.
Tracy Mallozzi, a spokeswoman at Green Dot Public Schools, a Los Angeles-based charter schools organization, confirmed that preliminary conversations with Santee teachers have taken place.
Earlier this year, some teachers at Locke Senior High School, another low-performing high school in Los Angeles, signed petitions asking the school board to have Locke converted to a charter under Green Dot, which is opening small high schools in Watts, the neighborhood served by Locke. ("L.A. District Faces Mounting Pressure Over High Schools,", July 18, 2007.)
“If things don’t get better soon, many teachers are going to go that route,” said Mr. Lara. “It’s been a roller coaster ever since.”
A former police officer, Mr. Carbino was brought in a year after the school opened in 2005 to address safety concerns as well as academic performance. He refused to be interviewed for this article.
But Los Angeles Unified School District officials say they are trying to work with students and teachers to calm the situation. The district also denies charges that the number of AP courses at Santee has been reduced. Instead, they say that Mr. Carbino increased AP offerings from two last school year to 13 this year.
“It’s a fairly small group of teachers and students who are engaging in these protests,” said Hilda Ramirez, a spokeswoman for the 708,000-student district.
Troubled Campus
antee opened two years ago under then-Superintendent Roy Romer and was supposed to be a symbol of educational renewal in a low-income community. Instead, the campus has been known for fighting, crime, and teacher turnover.
“It’s been a disaster from day one,” said Jordan Henry, an English teacher and a union official.
The latest controversy appears to stem from inspections required under the 2004 settlement that ended a lawsuit called Williams v. California, in which plaintiffs argued that many schools, particularly those in low-income neighborhoods, were lacking basic necessities such as textbooks, clean and safe facilities, and properly credentialed teachers. ("Improvements Seen to California Schools As Result of Williams Case Settlement," Aug. 13, 2007.)
The mandated inspections, conducted by county offices of education throughout the state, include a textbook audit to make sure students have the books they need.
Mr. Lara said no one was alerted to the course changes made in advance of the Williams inspections. Teachers found out, he said, when they logged on to their computers to take attendance and saw that the names of the courses they were teaching had changed. In some cases, AP courses were replaced with regular courses, he said.
Police escorted one teacher who complained about the unexpected changes from the building, according to Mr. Lara. Since then, dramatic photos and videos of students protesting in the auditorium and outside the building, chanting “Fire Carbino,” have shown up in local news reports and on Web sites. And this week, students and parents were planning a march through the neighborhood to voice their concerns.
“I’m not going to receive [AP] credit,” said 12th grader Araceli Aca, who says her AP English class was changed to a course called Writing Seminar. “My mom is really furious because she hasn’t been able to get any answers.”
District Response
The district denies claims that the number of AP courses at Santee has been reduced. In a written statement, Carmen Schroeder, the superintendent of Local District 5, which includes Santee and is located in South Los Angeles, said the principal added the writing courses to help students pass AP exams.
The school also is part of a new partnership with Los Angeles Trade Technical College and the University of California, Irvine that allows students to graduate with both a diploma and college credit, or even an associate’s degree. Ms. Schroeder called the arrangement “a wonderful opportunity for the South Los Angeles community that has traditionally had very little access—or financial means—to college.”
But Mr. Lara argues that students at the school—which has three academic calendars, or tracks—don’t have equal access to AP courses. Most of the new AP courses, he said, are available only to those on the A track, which most closely follows a traditional school calendar. The students that started school July 2, before the changes were made, are on the B track.
A chart he has compiled shows that 35 classes, primarily English classes, have been changed, and more than 850 students have been affected.
In spite of the latest controversy, Ms. Schroeder expressed support for Mr. Carbino.
“I believe that everyone at Santee has the same goal: providing students with a rigorous and relevant education that will prepare them for college and careers,” her statement said.
Ms. Ramirez, the district spokeswoman, also said the principal has worked with students on conflict resolution and peer-to-peer counseling. And a profile of the principal published last year in the Los Angeles Times discussed his determination to keep the school from being taken over by the state because of low test scores.
But A.J. Duffy, UTLA’s president, said he doesn’t blame Santee’s staff for talking to charter school operators about leaving the district.
“Do I want that? No. Do I understand? Yes,” he said, adding strong words for Los Angeles Unified Superintendent David Brewer III. “If he doesn’t remove and fire [Carbino], he’s going to have another Green Dot school, and he’s going to be superintendent of nothing.”
Saturday, June 02, 2007
U.S. Data Show Rapid Minority Growth in School Rolls
Good news in this report is that "The number of minority students taking Advanced Placement courses, for example, more than doubled from 1997 to 2005." -Angela
June 1, 2007
U.S. Data Show Rapid Minority Growth in School Rolls
By SAM DILLON
Driven mainly by an extraordinary influx of Hispanics, the nation’s population of minority students has surged to 42 percent of public school enrollment, up from 22 percent three decades ago, according to an annual report issued yesterday by the government.
The report, a statistical survey of the nation’s educational system, portrays sweeping ethnic shifts that have transformed the schools. The changes, with important implications for educators and policy makers, have been most striking in the West, where, the survey says, Hispanic, black and Asian students together have outnumbered whites since 2003. But all regions have seen growth in minority student enrollment, particularly by Hispanics, who accounted for one of five public school students in 2005, the last year for which data were available.
“The rapid increase in the Hispanic population in America’s schools is quite striking,” said Mark S. Schneider, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, the data-gathering arm of the Department of Education.
The Congressionally mandated report, “The Condition of Education,” draws on data collected from state education agencies, schools and colleges by Mr. Schneider’s agency and the Census Bureau. Those data suggest significant challenges ahead for American education, partly because of the persistent math and reading test-score gaps that separate white students from blacks and Hispanics.
According to the survey, those gaps have remained largely unchanged since the early 1990s except in math at the fourth-grade level, where the black-white gap has narrowed somewhat. On average, the study shows, Hispanics score slightly better than blacks, but well below whites, in reading and math in both fourth and eighth grades. (In an interview, Mr. Schneider noted that the results of a national history test that were released in May did show a narrowing of the achievement gap in that subject.)
The most pronounced development in school demographics has been in Hispanic growth. Hispanic students accounted for just 6 percent of public school enrollment in 1972, but by 2005 their numbers had grown to 20 percent, the survey found. During the same period, white enrollment declined to 58 percent of school population, from 78 percent. African-American enrollment changed little: blacks were 14.8 percent of all students in 1972 and 15.6 percent in 2005.
The distribution of groups differs considerably by region. The Midwest remained the whitest region in 2005: 74 percent of students there were white, and 26 percent members of minorities. In the South, 24 percent of students were black, more than anywhere else. In the West, 46 percent of students were white, 37 percent were Hispanic, 7 percent were Asian, 5 percent were black, and the rest were Pacific Islanders, American Indians or students of more than one race.
At a news conference in Washington, Mr. Schneider focused much of his presentation of the report on statistics showing that more high school students, across racial and ethnic lines, had been taking advanced courses in recent years. The number of minority students taking Advanced Placement courses, for example, more than doubled from 1997 to 2005.
The report also found that many high school students were spending more time on homework than did students two decades earlier. In 1980, 7 percent of 10th graders reported spending 10 hours a week or more on homework, but by 2002 that number had risen to 37 percent, more than a fivefold increase. The number of boys who reported spending 10 hours or more increased to 33 percent from 6 percent. For girls, the number jumped to 41 percent from 8 percent.
In 2002, 19 percent of girls, and 26 percent of boys, reported spending three hours or less a week on homework.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/01/education/01educ.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
June 1, 2007
U.S. Data Show Rapid Minority Growth in School Rolls
By SAM DILLON
Driven mainly by an extraordinary influx of Hispanics, the nation’s population of minority students has surged to 42 percent of public school enrollment, up from 22 percent three decades ago, according to an annual report issued yesterday by the government.
The report, a statistical survey of the nation’s educational system, portrays sweeping ethnic shifts that have transformed the schools. The changes, with important implications for educators and policy makers, have been most striking in the West, where, the survey says, Hispanic, black and Asian students together have outnumbered whites since 2003. But all regions have seen growth in minority student enrollment, particularly by Hispanics, who accounted for one of five public school students in 2005, the last year for which data were available.
“The rapid increase in the Hispanic population in America’s schools is quite striking,” said Mark S. Schneider, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, the data-gathering arm of the Department of Education.
The Congressionally mandated report, “The Condition of Education,” draws on data collected from state education agencies, schools and colleges by Mr. Schneider’s agency and the Census Bureau. Those data suggest significant challenges ahead for American education, partly because of the persistent math and reading test-score gaps that separate white students from blacks and Hispanics.
According to the survey, those gaps have remained largely unchanged since the early 1990s except in math at the fourth-grade level, where the black-white gap has narrowed somewhat. On average, the study shows, Hispanics score slightly better than blacks, but well below whites, in reading and math in both fourth and eighth grades. (In an interview, Mr. Schneider noted that the results of a national history test that were released in May did show a narrowing of the achievement gap in that subject.)
The most pronounced development in school demographics has been in Hispanic growth. Hispanic students accounted for just 6 percent of public school enrollment in 1972, but by 2005 their numbers had grown to 20 percent, the survey found. During the same period, white enrollment declined to 58 percent of school population, from 78 percent. African-American enrollment changed little: blacks were 14.8 percent of all students in 1972 and 15.6 percent in 2005.
The distribution of groups differs considerably by region. The Midwest remained the whitest region in 2005: 74 percent of students there were white, and 26 percent members of minorities. In the South, 24 percent of students were black, more than anywhere else. In the West, 46 percent of students were white, 37 percent were Hispanic, 7 percent were Asian, 5 percent were black, and the rest were Pacific Islanders, American Indians or students of more than one race.
At a news conference in Washington, Mr. Schneider focused much of his presentation of the report on statistics showing that more high school students, across racial and ethnic lines, had been taking advanced courses in recent years. The number of minority students taking Advanced Placement courses, for example, more than doubled from 1997 to 2005.
The report also found that many high school students were spending more time on homework than did students two decades earlier. In 1980, 7 percent of 10th graders reported spending 10 hours a week or more on homework, but by 2002 that number had risen to 37 percent, more than a fivefold increase. The number of boys who reported spending 10 hours or more increased to 33 percent from 6 percent. For girls, the number jumped to 41 percent from 8 percent.
In 2002, 19 percent of girls, and 26 percent of boys, reported spending three hours or less a week on homework.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/01/education/01educ.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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