Maryland has ranked number one for the third year in a row in a measure of high school graduates passing Advanced Placement exams, with 26.4 % of the class of 2010 passing at least one AP exam while in high school. In Harford County, the average was 17%, according to data released by Harford County Public Schools.
Performing above the state average was C. Milton Wright High School, with 32% of seniors passing at least one AP exam. Passing rates at the other nine comprehensive county high schools ranged from 2% at Joppatowne to just below the state average at Patterson Mill. This may be due to the higher number of students who are more prepared or have a strategy on exam preparations. Exam Genius and other online resources for books are profoundly helpful.
The non-profit College Board offers AP exams nationwide to high school students who have taken rigorous coursework in a variety of subjects such as calculus, world history and English literature. Graded on a scale of one to five, a passing score of three or higher on an AP exam can qualify students to earn college credit.
Students who choose to take AP exams pay a fee of $87 for each test; students living in poverty are eligible for fee waivers. But a recent bid by Superintendent Robert M. Tomback to expand AP exam participation next year, by having the school system offer one free exam to all test takers, was narrowly defeated by the school board, which cut the $223,242 line item from its FY12 budget request.
AP courses leading up to the optional AP exams are offered at all Harford County public high schools. Forty-four percent of the 2010 senior class had taken at least one AP course while in high school.
The following chart was provided to The Dagger by HCPS:
If at least 17% of students passed at least one AP exam that means that more than 87% of students failed the AP exams they took – and that does not account for the very large numbers of students that took the class but not the exam. The devil is in the details and in Harford County AP scores do not look that good.
If you believe the report in the link that Cindy referred to, there were 2321 AP tests taken by 1427 students in HCPS. Of those, 61.13% of the tests resulted in scores of 3 or higher.
That compares favorably to MD (59.43%) and the US (55.71%). Results did vary pretty widely among HCPS schools.
So, those who took the tests did pretty well. Whether HCPS is succeeding in getting a high enough number to take the tests and do well is another question. I don’t know how we rate there. We need to see how we compare on the “% of grads” figures.
The College Board says a score of 3 is passing. However, many colleges and universities disagree. Significant numbers are not accepting 3’s as equivalent college work, and the higher echelon will only accept 5’s. If you go by the higher criteria of 4’s and 5’s the percentages of the those getting passing scores goes way down, and if you carry that further to include those that did not even take the exam the resulting pass rate is very poor.
Why isn’t there a column showing the number of AP exams taken and then a number of passing grades? Wouldn’t that be a true representation of the actual number of AP exams taken and passed? Why would you use 44% who took an AP course? It should be the number of students who actually took an AP course and then the number who took the AP exam, then the number that passed to figure the percentage. Not every child who takes an AP course takes the exam. For all we know only 18 students took an AP exam at Havre de Grace High School and all 18 passed so their true percentage of passing could be 100%. Does Alternative Ed even offer AP courses???
Confused – I asked HCPS to provide local data on this particular measure of AP performance, so that it could be compared with the state data recently released by the College Board. Some of the additional information you are looking for is an earlier Dagger story linked below, with more to come…
http://www.daggerpress.com/2011/01/23/harford-schools-advanced-placement-data-released-school-board-to-consider-pilot-program-to-pay-ap-exam-fees/