Advanced Placement Exams are developed by The College Board and offered to high school students nationwide in subjects ranging from English Literature to Calculus to Art History. Results from the AP Exams let students know if they are ready for college-level work and provide the rest of us with one of the few available measurements of student achievement based on national standards.
Given that over 65% of the nation’s high school graduates have headed right to college in recent years, AP results matter – not just to individual students, but to anyone who cares about the quality of public education.
In response to a request from The Dagger, Harford County Public Schools has released detailed AP results for the 2008-09 school year. The report includes many bright spots. But the results also serve as a sobering reminder that the celebrated passing rates on the Maryland High School Assessment do not necessarily mean that our students are prepared to reach their higher aspirations.
In Harford County Public Schools, approximately 11% of the high school population took at least one AP Exam in the spring of 2009. The average passing rate was just under 63%, meaning that at best, about 7% of our high school students demonstrated success on the college-level exams. Since students can, and often do, take more than one AP Exam, the actual results could be lower.
Overall, 1,253 students took a total of 1,986 exams in a total of seventeen reported subjects.
English and social studies subjects dominated the list of the most popular exams. The highest numbers of test-takers by far were in U.S. History with 290, followed by Psychology (193), English Literature (190), Calculus A/B (188), European History (186), English Language & Composition (181), World History (180) and Environmental Science (117).
Student participation was lower in science and math (except as noted above) and in the foreign language exams. Less than 100 students took AP Exams in Biology (95), Statistics (93) and Calculus BC (64). Even fewer took exams in Chemistry (36) and Physics (21) and less than 20 students took exams in Computer Science, Spanish, German and French. None of which is good news, given the global economy and the opportunities presented by BRAC.
In terms of performance, HCPS reported that the average passing rate on all AP Exams in Harford County was down slightly from last year and for the past five years, falling from 65.1% in 2005 to 62.8% in 2009. But the passing rate still compared favorably with the national rate of 58.8%. Passing is defined as a score of “3” or higher on a scale of 1 – 5.
Performance also varied widely by subject area, with 88% of students passing the AP Statistics Exam and zero passing in AP French. Although it’s important to note that the reliability of data decreases when exams are taken by small numbers of students. Among the more widely taken tests, the passing rates ranged from a high of 83% in English Language & Composition to a low of 40% in World History.
Harford County students performed better than the State average in ten out of seventeen exams reported – Biology, Calculus A/B, Calculus BC, Computer Science, English Language & Composition, English Literature, Environmental Science, Physics, Psychology and Statistics.
Areas of relative weakness were Chemistry, European History, French, German, Spanish, U.S. History and World History.
But the averages masked some extreme disparities among schools. For example on the Calculus AB Exam, over 90% of test-takers at Fallston High School had a passing score, compared to 12.5% at North Harford.
And comparing schools or school systems by passing rates alone can be tricky.
Case in point: Aberdeen and Bel Air High Schools started out with nearly the same number of students taking the course in AP Biology, and it appears that Aberdeen had a much lower passing rate on the exam compared to Bel Air. (45% vs. 71%). But that’s only because more Bel Air students chose not to take the exam.
There are a lot of reasons why individual students might take an AP course and not the corresponding exam. Students may not be able to pay $86 to take the test; they may have taken the course solely to bolster their college applications; they may have been accepted to a college that won’t grant credit for passing scores, the list goes on. But it’s also true that students who believe they are not prepared to do well on the exam tend to opt out. Since high opt-out rates can inflate passing rates, opt-outs should also be factored into comparisons.
One way to account for students who opt out of taking AP Exams is to consider the number of students who passed the exam in a particular subject as a percent of all course-takers in that subject. By that measure, passing rates naturally dropped in HCPS, significantly in many cases, and Aberdeen actually showed slightly better performance on the Biology Exam than Bel Air (20.8% vs. 19.2%).
With all of the above in mind, and with thanks to HCPS for providing comprehensive data, here are the results broken out by subject and by high school for the 2009 AP Exams. You will note that AP coursework and exams were offered at all ten county high schools, but varied by school. HCPS explains that this was a function of teacher supply and student demand. Exams taken by fewer than 5 students are marked with an asterisk by HCPS, to protect student anonymity.
I found many things wrong with this article, not which the least is that it did not make a point or draw any conclusions about education in Harford County. I interpreted the article as the author’s way of ripping HCPS administrators and hard-working teachers. What did you expect, that every student would take the tests and get a 5? Let me know when you wake-up. If you are going to use statistics like this, at least analyze the data and draw a conclusion. Even better, review the data, look at some of the bright spots in the data, and write an article about what works. For example, I noticed that one of the most successful pass percentages in any subject in any school was Psychology @ CMW. 80 students took the exam out of 93 in the course – 86%. Of these 80, 77 passed the exam, 66 passed with a 4 or better. If memory serves, this data was similar for this subject at CMW in years past. Statistics at Fallston had 32 students take the exam with 31 passing a 96.8% pass rate. Why not look at one of these programs and find out why they are successful? Or have we been lowered only to ripping into to people to increase traffic on this website? If that is the case then ignore this comment.
Whoa, Steven F! Where are you getting your impression of the author’s intended message? I read the same thing you did and, to me, this article seems to be an objective narrative about the results themselves and a warning that the data can be hard to interpret. Hopefully, the data given can be used by the school system to improve scores in the future. I did not detect any “ripping” of HCPS employees in the article. Yes, it would be helpful for someone to look into why certain programs at certain schools seem to work well. I imagine that HCPS is already on that.
Trying to see what your point is Steve. I don’t know why you are “ripping” the author for presenting the data because the fact of the matter is Harford County Public Schools should be publishing it. I don’t see any school or teacher in this article being criticized so don’t quite understand why you are interpreting it this way.
There is something I do agree with you about. If CMW has such a great pass rate on Pscyhology, why aren’t other schools teaching the same thing? Could it actually be that there is a big difference in the teacher(s)at those schools? I have no problem giving credit to great teachers because they deserve it, but to denty the fact that teachers also can be part of the problem isn’t helping either. That is one of the main reasons why it is so difficult to compare data at different schools. I honestly don’t believe that there is a huge demographic difference between Bel Air High, CMW, Patterson Mill and Fallston but there are some significant differences in achievement on these tests.
I think it is also important to note that the pass rates have gone down. If you look at Comprehensive Secondary School Reform implemented by Harford County in 2005 I believe there is a correlation between pass rates declining and the implementation of an 8 period schedule with classes meeting every other day and/or on a semester basis. Maybe it is a coincidence but the College Board itself has done research on the effect of this schedule versus the 7 period schedule and has shown declines in pass rates in certain subjects as well as SAT scores. To that end, there is empirical evidence that demonstrates that teaching Foreign Language every other day is detrimental to student achievement (see the absymal AP pass rates for foreign language!)
Again, HCPS should be having this discussion with the community and they haven’t. With all of the money going towards public education and kids started school younger you would think scores would be better and they are not. Maybe others can shed some light on why this is happening and maybe it has something to do with schools pushing so many kids to take the classes and test(s) when it may not be appropriate.
I think the “ripping” steve sees are found in paragraphs 1-4 or the opening. Although this is not as out there as other stories written by this author it is still there. When you open like that it can leave some readers with the taste as they read the rest of the piece.
A few issues I find with the premise is that the author seems to equate the high HSA rate we enjoy in this county as indicative of students college preparedness. HSA’s have never been designed for that purpose and HSA assesses a students ability to have mastered BASIC High School material any college bound student should have passed them the first time early on. An AP exam by contrast is designed to asses if a kid mastered a college class during HS not are they prepared for it. A student could easily score a 1 or 2 fail the AP exam but be prepared for college they just did not MASTER college chemistry, for example, in HS. I got a 3 on the Calc BC test and still took 3 college calculus classes and not only recieved a grade of an A but scored a 100 on all the exams in the class.
Another flaw is that we are only looking at the cream of the crop students in this data they are all most likely ready for college. They do not represent the kids that will be aspiring to college and attending who did not take AP classes because their academic level was only average. To piggy back on other pieces by this author who contends those kids are the ones we let down and send to college taking remedial classes; solving issues with AP is not going to help them.
One successful model I have seen in the 4 period day for AP is to make certian AP courses like sciences, math US History etc. 2 credit courses thus meeting everyday. Maybe some kids who take gobs of AP classes would pair down and focus on a few but would have more instructional time to be ready for those tests. I have also seen programs that do saturday school for AP classes and summer homework but those polocies never would fly here.
One final problem I see is the flodding of AP classes with students who are only concerned with earning a high GPA and a good high school transcript and are not serious about the class. These students cause teachers to water down content at the detreminte of the serious students in the class. As you increase the number of sections you offer of an AP class you decrease the effectivness of the teacher. Small schools who offer one section of let’s say AP Biology and have the same teacher teach vertical courses such as Anatomy and Phys, Micro and Honors Bio to better prepare the pool of candidates do very well. They utilize on teacher who is usually dynamic for the program and while they will not have 70 kids pass the test that year they will have great percentages. To an extent Stand and Deliver cronicals this plan with Garfield HS in LAUSD. He took the top kids and built them up to this over 4 years. As the program expands you add a second teacher who works in conjunction with the existing teacher to prepare students for the course and it’s demands.
Cdev, I wanted to clarify a few things in your post. First is that kids receive a weighted and an unweighted GPA. The colleges look at the unweighted so I don’t think your reasoning is correct. When Cindy’s kids went to BAHS, and which is still the case there, they only have honors classes in 9th and 10th grade. Kids who want to take anything other than average classes are expected to take AP classes. Colleges look for honors and AP classes because they want kids to challenge themselves. I’ve spoken with the principal and he told me to call around to some colleges and if they agreed with me he would look into offering honors classes in 11th and 12th grade. I got the first 5 colleges I called to agree but nothing has changed. I’m disappointed. My son is probably not quite ready for AP classes, so he won’t have the option of taking honors classes like he would if he went to Fallston or some other schools and it will hurt him when he applies to college.
AP classes do give summer HW but they only meet every other day, which, as you know, gives them much less classroom time.
I was talking more nationally and less HCPS specific.
Steven F ,unlike what most of the news media seem to think, we don’t need the media to tell us what to think. Cindy gave us a bunch of facts, it’s our job to think about those facts and come to our own conclusions.
Steven F: clearly your post was driven by resentment and defensiveness, instead of by logic. So I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that emotion caused your reply to be so off the mark. I will also assume that you are not proposing that we ignore concerns such as those that were presented, quite well, by Cindy. But a few points should be noted:
– If you have followed Cindy’s words AND her actions on education for over 10 years, you would know that whatever she does is thoroughly researched, well thought-out, ALWAYS constructive, and gives credit where it is due. Your suggestion that her motives were to increase “traffic on this website”, is absurd.
– As those within the Harford school community know from working with Cindy ….. her overriding objective has always been to do whatever she can to promote a quality public school education for ALL harford county students.
– I’ve noticed over the years that her opinions and advocacy are valued most by those professionals within HCPS who place quality education and a positive student experience above their own personal agendas (as a matter of fact, the administration of BAHS nominated her for Harford’s Most Beautiful Person a few years back; I’m assuming that was not due to her constant “ripping” of them).
– You lament that, in this article, she offers no point or conclusions. First of all, you’re mistaken. Second of all, the purpose of this article is to make an initial observation (a valid and lucid one, I might add). As with any issue of concern and importance, there needs to be a “beginning” of the discussion. Unfortunately we have a director of secondary education who is so self-serving that he would never consider presenting information like this (he would rather find a new clever way to smugly misinform us with a twisted histogram in a powerpoint presentation).
It is a good thing that we have advocates like Cindy who give so much of their time and care and effort to identify challenges and help find solutions. And the students of HCPS are better off for it.
Thanks for all of your hard work Cindy.
I would agree with every point except for a couple. Some of Cindy’s pieces/work are overly critical.
She is a proponent of what works best for a certian group of students not what works best for ALL students.
She also has tried to help students that NO ONE in HCPS cares about and those are the gifted students. Most people don’t care about them because there are so very few and most people think the brilliant ones will be fine.
So, thank you Cindy.
I agree more needs to be done to help them. But I also think alot more parents think their child is gifted then are actually gifted too. A true gifted child would be taking the AP exam when they take the class due to their intrensic love for learning. Her agenda is counter and has come at times at the expense of those children in other groups and geographic regions.
Lots of people think their kids are brilliant, which is completely annoying to those of us whose kids actually are. However, it becomes pretty clear somewhere along the line that some kids are, in fact, profoundly gifted. Some time after that, anyone who can, gets the child out of HCPS because there are no services. HCPS doesn’t need to do more, it needs to do SOMETHING.
The bottom line is that as parents, we care about our kids more than we care about anyone else’s kids and if we help others through advocacy for our own children, that’s great, but it isn’t our main concern. And some of us just get out (of HCPS) because we don’t like to beat our heads on the wall. It gets old pretty quick. Most of us also don’t like confrontation, but we should be grateful to those who are willing to fight the fight, and in my view, that describes Cindy.
In private schools, the number of students taking AP classes may be smaller, but ALL the students take the test. The private schools do a better job of making sure that the students taking AP are able to do well in that level of class and that the students are will prepared for the test. That’s one reason their pass rates are significantly higher.
This is great information that should be presented to parents are High School registration time. If you know ahead of time that in a particular class only 6% of the students pass the AP test, you might think twice about having your child take that class.
Thanks for providing the data, Cindy!
Some schools have the kids sign contracts requiring the test as part of enrolling in the course.
What schools are they? That means they would be forcing the students to pay money for something they may not pass. Doesn’t sound legal to me…
A variety of places do this. Some private some public. Some in this state. They are asking for a comitment they are required to give you a free APPROPRIATE public education that does not include AP classes that you are not serious about. I know a few in PG and they have great pass rates. Some in Moco.
If a student takes an AP class then declines to take the test, they should not receive the bump on their GPA. Clearly they are gaming the system to get a higher GPA.
I have heard of schools that take the AP designation off the transcript along with the weighting if a student does not take the test.
Finally, the scores we have all been looking for. I’ll do a little ripping. These scores are awful. It is just wonderful that CMW has kids passing psych, but guess what? Many colleges don’t give credit for AP psych and admissions counselors call it JV AP.
HCPS students need to be prepared in math, science, and languages–not just the English one. Did anyone look at the foreign language scores? HCPS should be ashamed. The truth is that at good schools kids pass the AP tests.
What is obvious to me is that students are allowed to take AP classes that are not rigorous enough and create artifically inflated GPAs. The other number that would be VERY telling is to give the grade the students received in the class. I know of more than one student at Patterson Mill who were given A’s all year and then got 1’s on the AP test. Who knows how many didn’t take the tests.
Thank you for finally digging up and publishing what HCPS certainly doesn’t want us to know. I am happy my kids are in better places.
I know for a fact that outside of HCPS there are students taking up to 6 AP courses at a time. If that is not a GPA inflater that I don’t knoww what! It shouldn’t be possible for students to do that and actually get a decent grade in all those classes but guess what it happens. If you ask me it is the teachers that are not doing their part, not the students!
People might also like to know that in some private schools, 100 percent of the students pass the tests. Out of eight tests that my daughter took, she earned fives on six and fours on the other two–one of which was taught by a non-AP certified teacher so her GPA didn’t get the AP boost.
For once, I agree with CDev about disinterested students filling courses that they should not be allowed to take. In private schools students are limited to how many APs they can take and they have to have recommendations from teachers to even get into a class. It sure cuts down on class size and improves rigor.
There is no AP certificcation but there are many workshops offered by the College Board to help prepare teachers.
AP-certified was intended to be a general term for a teacher who did not take any College Board training, nor did he do anything else that AP teachers have to do.
I am on a roll. I have been wanting to see these scores for a looooong time. Take a look at our “Science and Math Academy,” which must be part of the Aberdeen scores. The science classes there are certainly not setting any records. I know some of the kids who attended SMA and they were very bright kids. Why aren’t those scores higher?
The SMA scores are not separated from the rest of AHS scores, the are combined. The Science and Math AP classes are strictly academy classes, the AP english and history are combined classes. All totals are combines.
I understand that the SMA scores are not separate that is part of what is so upsetting. The “very best” science students aren’t even passing these courses in high numbers. I would think that in a math and science academy, most of the 50 kids at each grade level would take and pass the science courses. The numbers don’t reflect that at all.
But Aberdeen did a great job on AP Englsih, go figure. I agree that the scores on math and science from the “Science and Math Academy” are disappointingly low. These kids are (arguably) our best science and math students in the county, but can’t pass science and math AP tests. I also know kids at SMA, really bright kids. What’s going on there? They should be aceing the AP tests. The lesson I take away from this is that HCPS has no idea how to educate it’s brightest kids.
As an SMA student, I can tell you that some of the teachers are very well prepared to teach the AP Science classes. The AP Chemistry teacher, for example, not only has planned the course to cover all of the material on the test, but also possesses that genuine love of teaching that helps students understand and learn more. However other AP Science classes I know have not prepared students for the examination. While some of this blame can be placed on the teachers, you must still understand that the examination itself is very difficult. A passing score is usually only merited by answering half the questions correctly.
Did you look at the Calc AB data? Most ABE students took the test and most passed the test 2nd only to Fallston who had half the number of kids take the test.
In Calc BC they blew everyone away almost all took and passed the test. BTW those kids are Juniors!
Chemistry ABE was the only school with a decent try but county wide was appaling
Comp Sci was awesome at ABE
Notice ABE offered the much harder Physics C
Bio looked bad but that test is generally harder to pass.
A 60% pass rate from SMA kids in calculus isn’t that good. Of the 58 kids who took the class, 50 were from SMA. Given the calibre of the students there, the pass rate for the 58 who took the class should have been closer to 80%.
BTW Calculus BC is a senior level class. AB is for Juniors.
Not all of them are SMA kids. some are the regular kids taking calc with different teachers.
I thought BC was with differential equations and AB without? Calc II is something different.
Preq for BC is AB. It is the next level of progression in calc. No mention of diffi Qs being part of BC coursework.
See link: http://www.hcps.org/students/docs/2008-09_coursebook_courses.pdf
The low rate of passing on the Calculus A/B test shows the huge difference between college level math and what is taught in HCPS. With the exception of Fallston, where clearly there is a great math Teacher at work. The students who took this test are in most cases the brightest math students in the county, but somehow the Calculus class they took was not “rigorous” enough for them to pass the test. It is no wonder so many HCPS students end up in remedial math classes when they get to college.
Calculus B/C is only marginally better. Probably because the kids who didn’t pass the AP test for A/B as juniors didn’t bother take take the B/C test as seniors.
Remember also that even though a “3” is considered passing, most colleges will only give credit for 4’s and 5’s. When you look at those numbers these scores are terrible.
Another reason private schools may score higher on AP tests, more class time. My daughter’s AP Euro class meets 20% more than the Honors history class. But then again, private schools have the flexibility of scheduling to do something like that.
In response to “Not From Here”
The college board instituted an audit policy a few years ago. They noticed that some schools were offering AP gym or offering AP courses that gave students a weighted grade but did not offer a rigorous program. Now, for a class to be designated as an AP class it must pass the audit set forth by the college board. Each teacher in each subject must submit a syllabus and credentials EACH year. If they don’t pass the “rigor” test then the schools cannot acknowledge it as an AP course.
If psychology is considered jvAP then why aren’t all schools blowing up the charts. That’s not the case.
As far as admissions go, psychology is one of the most accepted courses since it meets the general requirements for most majors. The course wouldn’t have one of the highest enrollments each year if kids couldn’t get the benefit of the college credit.
The only instances I’ve heard of not accepting the psych credit was for kids who were psychology majors. This makes sense as institutions want you to take their courses as it relates to a student’s academic major; however, they will give you credit toward your general requirements.
If teachers are passing the “rigor” test, why aren’t the students passing the AP test?
The JV AP comment was a quote from a college counselor from Gilman and it was said at a college colloquiem for Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. I assumed the guy knew what he was talking about because he sends kids to the very top schools in the country.
And I stand by my comment that students need to learn math, science, and languages. First. Period.
One thing to consider for the future. The 4 math credits is going to force those Geometry kids in MS to have to take AP Calc or Stats to graduate HS!
That wouldn’t be a bad thing if all the Calculus teachers in the county were as good as the one at Fallston. BUT looking at these scores, the students who take calulus in High school will end up repeating it in college becuase they didn’t learn it in the first place. Instead of taking AP in High School they would be better off taking calculus at HCC and earning real college credit.
consider some schools use HCC for their calc teacher.
There may be HCPS teachers that teach as adjuncts at the college, but AP Calculus is not an HCC class. HCPS students can take calculus at the community college and some do cross enroll, but it is not AP.
yes some cross enroll because their school can’t offer the class.
Most kids who take geometry in middle school have every intention of taking calculus in high school; they are the top math students. Many of them in the class of 2009 took trig and pre-calculus the same year so that they could do both levels of AP calculus, which for most high school students is overkill. If they go to a good college, they usually don’t skip more than the first level of calculus.
Yes but in schools offering 5 sections of geometry in their feeder MS that is going to water down the level of the class and the number of good calc teachers out there is small. Particularly when we pay so little for teachers. People with that expertice can usually get jobs paying better and chose their school in Baltimore City and make far more. Of course paying more for science and math teachers is another arguement for another time.
Actually, those of us with good math and science skills go on to get good jobs in science and engineering. Very few math and science majors go into teaching for many reasons, money being the biggest. But, I won’t ever see the day when a school will pay a competetive salary ($60-70K) with industry for science majors. So us scientists complain about bad math teachers, bad math curriculum, and tutor our own kids in math and science.
I agree I think to lure the good ones to teaching we need to pay those teachers competitive salaries since they are a valuable comodity.
Can someone tell me why 79 students at Patterson Mill, took AP US History. That’s over a third of the junior class! That’s more than at CMW, a school twice the size. 56 took AP Euro, that’s about 25% of the sophomore class. I’m sure there some box some administrator gets to check off if there are a large number of students taking AP. With their low pass rates, they shouldn’t even offer those courses.
As a parent at that school, I can attest to the fact that the administration is encouraging as many kids as possible to take AP classes. The principal has told the PTA that it is his position. Maybe it is to inflate GPA’s. Maybe they get some money from the College Board because that company is making lots of money on kids who won’t can’t pass the test. These classes were never meant for everyone and for the schools to be pushing students to take these classes is reprehensible. A teacher told my daughter to take AP History in 10th grade and I couldn’t believe it. I have no idea what the criteria was based on but I think they just tell most of the kids regardless of their ability.
A highly regarded AP teacher at another school told me years ago that AP classes aren’t for many of the kids in school. He was very leery about the push to have so many kids take AP clases. Also depending on the subject matter (English vs. History for example), there can be much more flexibility in how much of the AP curriculum is being taught because it isn’t a mandated or tested class.
Unless you have a highly selective private school most students probably have no business being in an AP class. They’re called Advanced Placement classes for a reason. Encouraging kids who don’t have the ability and desire to do the work and grasp the material to take an AP class is just setting them up for failure.
My high school had about 2300 students when I was there. We had 1 section of AP U.S. History, 1 section of AP English, 1 section of AP Calculus, etc. Almost everyone in the class took the test and most of them passed it (my AP US History class for example had about 17 people in it, everyone took the test, 15 got at least a 3, most got at least a 4, and 2 of us got 5’s.) Kids who had no business being in it were not allowed in the class and kids who were borderline were fully informed on how much work and how difficult the AP classes were before they were allowed to sign up for them. It was also very difficult to get an A in any of the AP classes (using my US History class as an example, typically only 1 or 2 students managed to get an A in it for the year.)
Another good point Grade inflation.
Grade inflation, watering down work, giving too much extra credit, and extending deadlines (and/or removing penalties for late work) is definitely a problem. I know a certain administrator at my wife’s high school made her accept some students’ late work without penalty because the parents called and bitched to him about it.
The administration (specifically that same administrator, who a complete idiot and routinely ticks off most of the staff at that school) also made her majorly change her summer assignments for her AP classes because it was “too much” work for kids to do over the summer. It originally consisted of making the kids read two books and complete some pretty basic assignments, which were due the first day of class, based on that reading. This was after a big deal was made about assigning “rigorous” summer assignments. She ended up having to drop the assignment to one book and give them a choice of several books to choose from…and then near the end of the summer she was told she could not penalize any students for turning in the work late.
I won’t say which school she teaches at, but one of the administrators there in particular has no business running anything and has almost 0 people skills.
Because Patterson Mill is the best school in the county, that’s why!! Just ask Wayne Thibeault!! It is his bit of empire-building before he retires–hopefully soon. He is only trying to make himself look good and isn’t accomplishing anything meaningful for the students.
Last year, my husband taught 88 students (another teacher taught 2 more sections)in a school in Balt. County with over 1900 students and the pass rate for his kids was 92%. This has been consistent for the last 13 years. His 2 AP Euro classes have had almost 100 % pass rates for a number of years also. The low pass rate in Harford County is astonishing.
Yes, the teacher matters a lot. Teachers can either teach well…..or not. Unfortunately many teachers do not have adequate subject matter expertise to teach an AP class. Moving a middle school teacher up to high school to teach several AP classes his first year is also puzzling–it didn’t seem to go too well.
And, not everyone should be in an AP class. When principals want to check the box and say they have so many people enrolled in AP classes, the quality just goes down.
As a junior at BAHS, I am not exactly surprised to see these scores. As a sophmore, we were allowed to choose between AP World History and AP European History. I took AP World History, and although I recieved a 5 on the exam, the majority of my fellow test-takers recieved a score of 2. The low passing rates for this test were not because of a lack of preparation by the teacher, but because of a lack of preparation by the students outside of the classroom. The AP exams require a lot of preparation, and many students come in on test day without having prepared at all. Also, a high number of students taking AP classes don’t take the test at all, and take the class simply for the weighted GPA they recieve. Another interesting thing this article fails to mention is that many colleges don’t accept a “passing” score of a 3 at all, many only accept scores of 4 and 5, and some don’t accept AP scores at all.
Great point Batman about most colleges only accepting 4s and 5s. When you think about that, it makes the HCPS scores even worse.
There are a lot of good points being made about this topic. As a parent, I firmly believe that AP is being encouraged for kids who are not true AP students. When you see numbers taking AP courses that high, and look at the scores…you see that it is being watered down. The fact that schools look “good” on paper if AP courses are swelling with students is sad. AP is no longer AP.
Saying that, I would agree with Batman. My son took the AP U.S. History exam last year and scored a 4. It was a grueling experience for him! He went to each after-school review session, signed out the AP exam review book, and even had me purchase another review book for him at Barnes and Nobles. Unfortunately, he told me that his AP review groups consisted of the same 6 kids. All but one of these students received at least a 3 on the exam. None of the other students (and there were four sections) bothered to show or to take part in other review opportunities. If students are going to take AP courses, they need to take the exam seriously. If they don’t, then no one should point a finger at anyone else but themselves. My son’s teacher made himself available….but you remember the old “you can lead a horse to water” idea.
Of course, some did not show to the exam review sessions and did well. There are always self motivated kids who prepare themselves in other ways.
If AP scores are low, then why so many A’s within the course then? It is one thing to temporarily memorize chunks of information until unit test time. It is quite another to continually use that information in a meaningful manner so that it is usable during the AP exam. Again, teachers cannot force students to study for the AP exam outside of school. The AP U.S. history course stretched from Pre-Columbian America to the modern era….and it had to be completed by the end of April. Regular U.S. history, unless it has changed, runs from 1865 to modern time. So, AP covers more than 400 years more history in less time. My son’s teacher did a fine job of getting through curriculum, but students need to work outside of the classroom to prepare for the AP exam adequately. There is little time in the classroom for AP Exam review!
Granted, I can only speak for my son’s experience in AP U.S. History. I have no clue about the content for other AP courses. But until AP courses are reserved for high achievers, you are going to see more and more of this.
these statistics are pathetic, pathetic, pathetic….
take Aberdeen for example… the math and science academy is not listed, why? to hide their pathetic results! 42 of 58 take the test, and 35 of 42 get a grade of 3 or better.
it’s interesting how the county uses the math and science academy students SAT scores to boost overall aberdeen scores….and hides the math and science academy scores in these results.
why have an AP program if 50% of the students end up taking the exam?
the idea is to give them a chance at gaining college credits in advance.
these scores tell me that the AP programs are having serious problems and they need to be addressed.
the county and state would benefit by working on the governor level with all the other state governors in strong arming the scholastic testing service into lowering it’s fees.
furthermore, the state should look at ponying up some of the monies for these students who take the exam, i.e. pay 50% if a student scores a 3 or above, 75% for a 4, 100% for a 5. These monies could be in the form of a reimbursement for academic achievement. Same holds true for the other tests like the SATs.
Each school should take a serious look at how their AP programs are being run.
Harford County needs serious improvement.
Thank you sen10r. I agree with you.
As part of Aberdeen, note not the SMA, Frank, you should not think that the SMA is included only to raise the figures. In fact, my SAT and ACT scores, as well as scores on multiple AP exams have been better then those of some students in the SMA. I am not saying the SMA is not up to par. Simply that you should not think that the SMA is the only reason why Aberdeen receives the statistics it does. Some students at Aberdeen do succeed academically and are capable of doing more than dibbling a basketball or throwing a football. Some actually excel at both
Furthermore, many students may feel that they are not prepared for the AP exam in a subject and do not wish to pay the eighty-six dollars to take it and then fail. Had every student who had an AP class in Harford County taken their exam for that class, would the scores and stats been as high?
I think not.
As well, I would like to add when a student of the SMA walks across the stage at graduation, they receive a diploma stating Aberdeen High School, not Science and Math Academy.
This data does not properly reflect the performance of SMA students and teachers on the AP Calculus AB exam. After reading frank’s comment, I took the liberty to find out for myself, from the AP Calculus teacher how the SMA class did last year in Calculus. Thirty-four kids took the exam. Of these thirty-four, only two of them didn’t pass. Also, twenty-one of those thirty-four, got 5’s. Just in case you didn’t know (because you seem to be getting numbers wrong all over the place) that’s 94% of the kids passing, and 62% getting fives. Scores like this on a calculus exam are unheard of. The teacher of this class should be commended for their efforts.
Also, we at the SMA don’t choose when to include our scores in Aberdeen’s statistics and when not to. As a part of Aberdeen High School, our scores are lumped in with Aberdeen’s scores. We aren’t hiding. Frankly, we have nothing to hide. We work just as hard as students at other schools and are just as prepared for college, maybe even more prepared, than they are. By the end of senior year, every single student of the SMA has completed an original research project in conjunction with a professional in a scientific field. You would never know any of this from our scores, though, because apparently they are “pathetic.”
Next time you decide to take a stab at an advanced program because you don’t think their scores are up to par, I recommend you not only get the real facts on the scores, but also find out about more about the program for yourself.
My son, now 30, is a graduate of Harford County schools. It is unfortunate that they don’t seem to have progressed very well. I wasn’t happy with the schools then. The schools seem to always aim towards the mushy middle. Kids at either end of the spectrum fall by the wayside. My son took several AP classes and did very well. He said they were the only classes in which he felt that he was being challenged. There were some exceptions. Some of his teachers DID challenge him in class. Most did not. They seemed to be afraid of really challenging their students. One of his teachers told me, in confidence, that school administrators once asked what he did in the classroom “for fun.” So, sadly, I’m not surprised that Harford students aren’t scoring very well in AP scores. If I had to do it over, I would have either homeschooled or sacrificed monetarily and sent him to private schools.