The College Board's AP Report to the Nation

Wisconsin ranked 13th in the percentage of public school students scoring 3 or higher on an AP exam during their high school years.

The College Board:

Almost 15 percent (Wisconsin = 15.8%) of public school graduates from the class of 2006 achieved during their high school years an AP® Exam grade of 3 or better (the score predictive of college success 1). This achievement represents a significant improvement since the class of 2000, when just 10 percent of public school graduates were achieving this result. The College Board, the not-for-profit membership association that administers the AP Program, released the third annual Advanced Placement Report to the Nation, which also showed that since 2000, all 50 states and the District of Columbia achieved an increase in the percentage of high school graduates that had earned an exam grade of 3 or higher on the college-level AP Exams.

The Report also highlights new independent research, which bolsters previous research findings that students who participate in AP have significantly better college grades and college graduation rates than academically and economically similar students who did not take the demanding courses and exams.

Media and others occasionally rank states, districts, and schools on the basis of AP Exam results, despite repeated warnings that such rankings may be problematic. AP Exams are valid measures of students' content mastery of college-level studies in academic disciplines, but should never be used as a sole measure for gauging educational excellence and equity.

92K Wisconsin Summary pdf.

Sam Dillon:

More high schools across the nation are offering Advanced Placement courses to help students get into college and get ready for its academic rigors. In the process, however, many minority students who often need help most urgently are missing out.

“Taking rigorous courses is good for high school students, and there’s a lot of evidence that kids who have taken A.P. courses — even if they don’t do well on the tests — do better in college,” said Mike Cohen, president of Achieve Inc., a nonprofit organization created by state governors and business leaders that works to raise academic standards.

As increasing numbers of high schools offer the courses, minority enrollment in them has become a focus of study. Although African-American students were underrepresented last year, Asian students were the opposite; 11 percent of students who took the tests were Asian, while only 6 percent of the student population was Asian. About 62 percent of students who took the exams were white, while 65 percent of the nation’s student population was white, the report said.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at February 7, 2007 7:13 AM
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