High-level classes rise; test scores still lagging
Posted on Wednesday, August 30, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/165029/
Arkansas public high school students are taking more Advanced Placement tests and earning better scores each year.
But the state still lags behind the nation in the percentage of students scoring high enough on those tests to qualify for college credit, according to 2006 state results released Tuesday.
The Advanced Placement program, offered in about 60 percent of U. S. high schools, lets high school students enroll in collegelevel courses. Students who take the end-of-course exam in May can earn college credit if they score a 3 or higher on the exam, which is graded on a 5-point scale.
In 2006, the state Department of Education reported 15, 705 Arkansas students took Advanced Placement exams, a 13. 1 percent increase from last year and a 241 percent increase since 2002. Those students took 25, 780 exams.
Of those exams, about 28 percent — 7, 368 — had scores of 3 or better. That represents a 12. 9 percent rise over last year and 94 percent rise over 2002 in the number of state tests that can qualify for college credit.
The College Board, the New York-based nonprofit that oversees the program, reports that 59. 4 percent of the nearly 2. 3 million tests administered nationwide had scores of 3 or above.
Neither the state Education Department nor the College Board could provide the number of actual test takers who scored 3 or above on their exams. Many students take more than one exam.
Regardless of their scores, students who take the courses are more likely to go to college and less likely to drop out, said Linda Beene, director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.
“These courses represent the rigorous curriculum that are the best indicator of success in college,” she said.
Beene cited as an example the 5, 727 Arkansas public high school seniors who took Advanced Placement courses in 2004.
About 67 percent of those students went on to attend a public or private Arkansas college or university. Of those students, 87. 3 percent were still in college for the fall 2005 semester — 19 percent more than the average retention rate.
Beene and other state education officials attributed Arkansas’ growing participation in the Advanced Placement program to state legislation.
Act 102 of the 2003 special legislative session requires that by the 2008-09 school year, all high schools in the state offer at least four Advanced Placement courses in the core areas of math, English, science and social studies.
The law also requires that school districts offer the accompanying pre-Advanced Placement classes to prepare students for the college-level course work.
Many schools have added courses even before the law takes effect, said Ken James, commissioner of the state Department of Education.
Another state law — Act 2152 of 2005 — requires that for a student to receive a weighted Advanced Placement course grade, he must take the AP exam. The law also authorizes state funding to train pre-Advanced Placement and AP teachers and to pay student test fees. Without state help, students would pay $ 83 per exam. Last year, the program cost the state about $ 1. 5 million.
Other states are paying attention to such policies, James said.
In 2005, the state received national commendations for the largest single-year increase for any state in the Advanced Placement program’s 50-year history.
In February, the Denverbased Education Commission of the States, which tracks education-related legislation nationwide, published a report citing Arkansas’ Advanced Placement policies as a model for other states.
Likewise, the Southern Regional Education Board — a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Atlanta — also cited Arkansas’ gains in a May report. The organization advises state educators and policy-makers on how to improve education in 16 member states that extend from Texas in the southwest to Delaware in the northeast.
Lynn Cornette, the board’s senior vice president for educational policies, said Arkansas’ program has two benefits.
“Any time students are taking more rigorous courses, we know they perform better on college admission exams and in college,” she said. “Also, another benefit is the other courses in high school [that lead ] up to the AP courses.
“ When you have an AP course as the standard, it tends to improve the courses that lead up to them because the principals and teachers realize the importance of better preparing the students to take the AP courses.”
Tommie Sue Anthony, the coordinator of the Arkansas Advanced Placement Professional Development Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, predicted the state’s performance will improve with the greater availability of pre-Advanced Placement courses and better-trained teachers.
James said even students who are not enrolled in Advanced Placement courses can benefit from their teachers’ training.
“Most teachers do not teach a full day of AP courses,” James said. “And those methodologies and practices that they are learning in training throughout the summer transfer to all their courses.”
Beene of the state Higher Education Department predicted that as the number of students taking Advanced Placement courses increases, the number of college freshmen in the state who need to take remedial courses will decrease.
Last year, more than half of the state’s public college and university freshmen needed to take at least one such catch-up course, for which they cannot earn college credit.
Curtis Dwight Flournoy, a senior at Mills University Studies High School in the Pulaski County Special School District, said Advanced Placement courses have already given him the “ability to think at a college level.”
He said he participated in classroom activities at Mills he could never have experienced in a “regular” high school class. He mentioned his Advanced Placement biology course, where he was able to change the DNA of an organism to make it iridescent like a jellyfish.
Since his sophomore year, Flournoy has taken 10 Advanced Placement courses at Mills and expects to enter college next year with enough credits to enroll as a sophomore.
James said he expects “academically rigorous” courses to continue to pay dividends.
“The end result will be that we will have a better educated populace in the state of Arkansas,” he said, “which will continue to grow the economy and hopefully bring some continuing and prosperous jobs to the state of Arkansas.”