Advanced Placement Report to the Nation 2007 Advanced Placement Report to the Nation 2007
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For more copies of this report: The Advanced Placement Report to the Nation may be downloaded (PDF format) from the AP Central Web site at http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/documentlibrary. Printed copies may be ordered free of charge at http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/freepubs. AP Equity Policy Statement: The College Board and the Advanced Placement Program encourage teachers, AP Coordinators, and school administrators to make equitable access a guiding principle for their AP programs. The College Board is committed to the principle that all students deserve an opportunity to participate in rigorous and academically challenging courses and programs. All students who are willing to accept the challenge of a rigorous academic curriculum should be considered for admission to AP courses. 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Report to the Nation apcentral.collegeboard.com 060852051 apcentral.collegeboard.com 2007 Advanced Placement Report to the Nation 2007 Advanced Placement Report to the Nation 2007 Contents Introduction . .1 ® Notes New Developments in AP . .3 Part I: Three Themes for the Nation. .5 • Theme #1: State Initiatives Foster Student Success. 6 • Theme #2: Closing Equity Gaps. .8 1. Faculty from colleges and universities nationwide 9. These examinees include all public school students in the participate in the development of the AP courses, exams, and class of 2006 who took an AP Exam at any point in high • Theme #3: New Research on AP and College Success. .11 scoring standards. These faculty are full-time faculty from school. Because some AP Exam takers identify themselves as dozens of institutions, including Dartmouth College, Harvard an “other” ethnicity or decline to provide ethnicity, the “AP Part II: University, Princeton University, Spelman College, Stanford Exam Population” in this figure only represents 94.2 percent University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of of the AP population. Virginia, the University of Washington, and Yale University. 10. Knocking at the College Door (2003), Western Interstate AP Subject Areas: Participation, Performance, and Feedback for Educators. 15 For a complete listing of these faculty and their affiliations, Commission for Higher Education. visit the AP Press Room at www.collegeboard.com/appress. Appendix A: 11. This page contains data for both AP Computer Science 2. Kati Haycock, “Closing the Achievement Gap,” Educational Exams—AP Computer Science A and AP Computer Leadership (2001), Association for Supervision and AP Data at a Glance . .83 Science AB. Charts showing examinees by grade level, Curriculum Development. race/ethnicity, and gender include demographic data from Appendix B: 3. “Preparing Students for Success in College,” Policy both AP Computer Science Exams, so some populations Matters (2005), American Association of State Colleges and may be slightly inflated when individual students in those AP Exams Taken in U.S. Public Schools by the Class of 2006 During Universities. populations took both exams in 2006. Their High School Years. 84 4. Saul Geiser and Veronica Santelices, “The Role of 12. This page contains data for both AP Latin Exams—AP Advanced Placement and Honors Courses in College Latin Literature and AP Latin: Vergil. Charts showing Appendix C: Admissions” (2004), Center for Studies in Higher Education, examinees by grade level, race/ethnicity, and gender include University of California at Berkeley. demographic data from both AP Latin Exams, so some Raw Numbers for Table 1: U.S. Public Schools. 88 populations may be slightly inflated when individual students 5. Chrys Dougherty, Lynn Mellor, and Shuling Jian, “The in those populations took both exams in 2006. Relationship between Advanced Placement and College Appendix D: Graduation” (2005), National Center for Educational 13. This page contains data for all three AP Studio Art Accountability. portfolio assessments: Drawing, 2-D Design, and 3-D Design. Changes in Equity Gaps from 2000 to 2006. 89 Charts showing examinees by grade level, race/ethnicity, 6. Eugenio J. Gonzalez, Kathleen M. O’Connor, and Julie A. and gender include demographic data from all portfolios Miles, “How Well Do Advanced Placement Students Perform Appendix E: combined, so some populations may be slightly inflated when on the TIMSS Advanced Mathematics and Physics Tests?” individuals in those populations submitted more than one (2001), The International Study Center, Boston College. Exemplary International Programs . .92 type of portfolio in 2006. 7. Throughout this Report, success on AP Exams is defined as Notes. Inside Back Cover a score of 3 or higher. See page 2 for more information about why this score is used to denote success. 8. This percentage was calculated as follows: the numerator A Word About Comparing States and Schools includes each public school student in the graduating class of 2006 who earned an AP Exam grade of 3 or higher on an AP Exams are valid measures of students’ content mastery of college-level studies in academic AP Exam at any point in their high school years; if a student disciplines but should never be used as a sole measure for gauging educational excellence and earned more than one AP Exam grade of 3 or higher, she or equity. he was still only counted once. The denominator is simply the overall number of public school students graduating from high school in 2006, as projected in Knocking at the College Door (2003), Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. Advanced Placement Report to the Nation 2007 Introduction American educators are achieving much success in their What is the Advanced efforts to enable a wider and more diverse group of U.S. ® students than ever before to succeed in college-level studies Placement Program ? in high school. Yet we must also gaze clear-eyed at the The College Board partners with colleges and universities1 inequities that remain and the challenges that accompany to create assessments of college-level learning—the AP success in expanding access to the Advanced Placement Exams—in 37 subject areas. The College Board then supports Program® (AP®). This Report uses a combination of state, secondary schools in training teachers and developing a national, and AP Program data to provide each U.S. state curriculum of high academic intensity and quality that with context for celebrating its successes, understanding its will enable students to meet the standards for college-level unique challenges, and setting meaningful and data-driven learning in these subjects. As a result, most colleges and goals to prepare more students for college success. universities in the United States, as well as institutions in Part I of the Report comprises three powerful themes more than 30 other countries, use AP Exam results in the that appear once we situate each state’s AP participation admissions process as a designation of a student’s ability to and performance data within the context of its own succeed in rigorous curricula, and also award college credit racial/ethnic demographics and population size. Because or placement into higher-level college courses so that college one of the chief purposes of Part I is to provide state entrants can move directly into the courses that match their departments of education with new data to gauge success level of academic preparation for college. and identify current challenges in providing equitable educational opportunity (and because current, reliable How are the AP® Exams scored? racial/ethnic demographic data for nonpublic schools are not available for all states), the data in Part I represent AP Exams, with the exception of AP Studio Art, which is public schools only. a portfolio assessment, each consist of dozens of multiple- choice questions, which are scored by machine, and free- Part II of the Report uses data from all schools response questions (essays,