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AP classes shed their elite status

Ohanian Comment: This is a complicated issue and I come down in the "mixed feelings" category. Very mixed.

The percentage of Advanced Placement exam takers at Florida's Lake Brantley High School scoring well enough to earn college credit hasn't been this low since 1981. And Principal Darvin Boothe told a room full of AP teachers and counselors Friday at the George R. Brown Convention Center that he couldn't be more proud.

That's because though only 46 percent of the test takers earned a minimum passing score of 3, the number of passing scores — 862 — has never been higher.

"You need to convince your superintendent not to look at the percentages," Boothe said during the first day of the College Board's National AP Conference, which has brought nearly 2,500 educators to Houston for the weekend. "You need your superintendent to look at this number. You need to ask, 'How many kids did I help?' "

Boothe's philosophy represents a new way of thinking about AP-level classes on the part of educators, many of whom view the college-preparatory curriculum as an elite program reserved only for the most gifted students.

More school districts across the country, including Houston, are taking a more inclusive approach to AP programs.

For the past two years, almost every 10th-grader in the Houston Independent School District has taken the PSAT exam, and those who score high enough are automatically enrolled in AP classes. As a result, the number of juniors and seniors taking AP classes last year grew by 33 percent. The school district is still waiting to find out how many of those students took AP exams last spring.

HISD leaders are hoping that schools that have traditionally had few, if any, students attempt the tests will report improvement. In 2004, only about 13 percent of HISD's juniors and seniors attempted AP exams. White students, who represent about 9 percent of HISD's student body, accounted for 30 percent of the test takers.

Even if they don't take the test to earn college credit, students benefit from AP classes, said Marilyn Gavin, a high school guidance counselor in Los Angeles.

"The statistics show that kids who take AP courses in high school, they complete their bachelor's degree at a higher rate than those students who don't, regardless of if they take the test," Gavin said. "It's the rigor, the study habits. It's not the score on the exam."

HISD has hired Patricia Martin, the College Board's assistant vice president for school counselor advocacy, to come back next month and give Houston's middle and high school counselors tips for increasing participation in AP programs.

Counselors and teachers should work together, Martin said, to ensure the success of students who might not have been considered AP material in the past. "Otherwise, you put kids in these classes and the teachers will kill them off. It will be a self-fulfilling prophecy," she said.

jason.spencer@chron.com

— Jason Spencer
Houston Chronicle
2005-07-16
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3268462

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