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California
ranking on AP exams on the rise
More high school students taking test, scoring higher
By Tanya Schevitz, Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
California's
college-bound high school students did better than most of their
peers across the country on the Advanced Placement Exams, although
some minorities lagged behind, a report released Tuesday says.
The first-ever
comprehensive report on the College Board's 49-year-old AP program
shows that an increasing number of California public high school
students are taking the rigorous college-level courses and demonstrating
mastery of the subjects by achieving a grade of 3 or higher on
the exams' 5- point scale.
According
to the report, 65 percent of California public high school seniors
in 2004 who took the exams during their high school years scored
a grade of 3 or higher, while the figure was 63 percent for the
nation as a whole. California's score was an increase of 15 percent
over 2000 and places the state fifth in the nation behind New
York, Maryland, Utah and Florida.
"It is
encouraging news, and that is consistent with other reports,"
said state Superintendent Jack O'Connell. "We have more students
in rigorous courses. The schools are making progress."
Critics, however,
say the good news is tempered by the fact that many minority and
low-income students, particularly African American, Latino and
American Indian students, have limited access to Advanced Placement
courses and are not prepared academically to take them.
Even so, the
College Board's report notes, more minority students than ever
are taking the tests and improving their scores.
Overall, the
number of California seniors who took AP exams during their high
school years increased from 68,648 (22.2 percent) in 2000 to 95,195
(28.5 percent) in 2004. Across the nation, participation increased
from 405,475 (15. 9 percent) in 2000 to 558,993 (20.9 percent)
in 2004.
"AP has
become the standard for excellence in education for America,"
said Gaston Caperton, president of the nonprofit College Board,
which owns the AP and SAT exams. "Too often when we have
meetings like this about education, the results we report are
discouraging, but that is certainly not the case today."
The Advanced
Placement program was designed to offer high school students rigorous,
college-level work. It offers 34 courses and exams in subjects
ranging from U.S. history and English literature to chemistry
and calculus. Students can take the courses without taking the
exams and vice versa.
Many colleges
and universities, including the University of California, give
student applicants a grade-point bonus for taking AP courses.
In admissions, some colleges consider whether students took advantage
of the AP courses that are available at their schools. In addition,
by scoring high enough on the AP exams, students can skip introductory
college courses, saving time and money when they get to college.
It costs $82 to take each AP exam.
Increased
participation in the AP program by California students may be
partly a result of the state's rising student population. But
College Board Executive Director Trevor Packer said it was encouraging
that even with more students taking the exam, California saw a
rise in the percentage of students earning a score of 3 or higher.
Normally, as the pool of participants increases, scores go down.
In addition, he said, much of the growth in California was from
more Latino and low-income students taking the courses and tests.
Following
the state trend, the San Francisco Unified School District has
seen both more students taking the exam and scoring at least 3.
In 2000, 1,971 students took the AP exams, and 65.4 percent had
a score of 3 or higher. In 2004, 2,622 students took the exam
with 69.3 percent achieving a score of 3 or above.
"It really
is a sort of accomplishment to recognize and applaud,'' said Packer,
who heads the College Board's AP program. "Certainly AP performance
is expanding to a broader segment of California students than
ever before. But that doesn't mean that all the problems have
been solved. Many students are still not succeeding in AP courses,
and even more students are not taking them, so there is still
much more work to be done."
Participation
among the minorities nationwide is increasing -- but in representation
and success they still lag far behind whites and Asians, the report
says.
In California,
44,582 Latino students in public schools took AP exams in 2004,
a 12.3 percent increase from the year before. Over the same period,
Latinos had an 11.1 percent increase in the number earning a 3
or higher on the exam.
But while
Latinos were about 35 percent of the state's public high school
graduates in 2004, they represented only about 30 percent of the
AP test takers.
The figures
were much more dismal for blacks and American Indians. In 2004,
African Americans represented about 7 percent of California's
public school graduates but only 3 percent of the test takers.
American Indians were about 1 percent of students and less than
1 percent of test takers.
In comparison,
white California students made up about 42 percent of the student
population and 36 percent of the test takers in 2004. Asians outpaced
any other ethnicity for their participation, representing 14 percent
of the student population and 23 percent of the test takers.
Critics say
that although more Latinos are participating in the AP program,
many of them are taking just one course during high school. And
for many Latinos, the one AP course they take is often the Spanish
language course. Without the Spanish course, participation would
be much lower and the rate of success on the exam would drop,
AP officials concede.
Nationally,
23 percent of the AP tests taken by Latinos were the Spanish language
exam.
Many students
in high-achieving, upper-income schools take more than a dozen
AP courses each.
The participation
of more Latinos "is not reflective of having access to a
larger universe of college preparatory courses," said William
Kidder, a researcher at the Equal Justice Society in San Francisco.
"The pool is wider, but it doesn't have much depth. There
are going to be a lot of Latinos who have taken just one or two
courses. If you look at those who have taken four or five or more
courses, that is going to have a different ethnic breakdown."
But while
much of the growth in the participation of Latinos in the AP program
is in Spanish language, Latinos are increasingly taking other
AP courses and exams, Packer said.
Latina student
Robin Torres said during a news conference Tuesday in Washington,
D.C., that at her predominantly Latino high school in Edinburg,
Texas, many students were introduced to the AP program by first
taking the Spanish course.
"I took
12 AP courses," said Torres, who is now at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. "I don't see anyone left behind,
especially Hispanics, where taking an introductory course such
as Spanish gets us going."
The full report
can be seen on the College Board's Web site, apcentral.collegeboard.com.
This story
has been corrected since it appeared in print editions.
E-mail Tanya
Schevitz at tschevitz@sfchronicle.com.
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