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Sharp Rise in AP Testing Raises Questions in D.C.

Ohanian Comment: For
me, this is tragic. These students could have
been taking courses that would give them
impetus to becoming skillfull, activist
participants in society. . . instead of
failures on multiple AP exams.

By Jay Mathews

D.C. public school students took three times as
many college-level tests this year on average
as they did a decade ago, part of a trend that
is making the senior year of high school
comparable to the freshman year of college at
many Washington area schools. But in the
District, the rise of the Advanced Placement
program has become controversial, because only
a small portion of AP students are scoring high
enough to earn college credit.

The growing use of AP to raise standards for
the lowest-performing D.C. students is
confirmed by The Washington Post's latest
Challenge Index survey of 189 high schools in
28 school districts. Since 1998, the Challenge
Index has reported the annual level of
participation in AP, International
Baccalaureate and other college-level tests in
dozens of subjects for all public schools in
the region.



Washington area educators have had success
using college-level courses and tests to raise
the level of instruction in schools with large
numbers of impoverished students, such as
Wilson in the District, Wakefield in Arlington
County and Wheaton in Montgomery County, while
at the same time having students score well on
AP exams. But in the District and Prince
George's County, many schools with large
numbers of AP test-takers also have very low
passing rates on the test.

This year, 23 Washington area schools reported
grades that could earn college credit on less
than 10 percent of their AP exams. The national
passing rate is about 57 percent. Educators at
several of these schools said that despite the
low scores, their AP students benefited from
striving for more than is expected in most high
school courses and getting the experience of
three-hour exams full of essay questions
written and scored by outside experts. Previous
AP students said long reading lists and
frequent writing assignments helped them
survive academically when they enrolled in
college.

One D.C. school, Coolidge, broke all local
records for AP involvement in a high-poverty
school this year by giving 750 AP exams. Only 2
percent of the students received passing
scores, but because the Challenge Index is
designed to encourage participation and counts
tests, not scores, that large number would have
made Coolidge the top-ranked school in the
area, ahead of H-B Woodlawn in Arlington, where
59 percent of the AP exams received passing
scores.

Some teachers and parents at Coolidge have said
that the AP courses and tests are of no use to
students so far behind, and that they hurt
their grade-point averages. But parent leader
Terry Goings said he supports the program.
Coolidge Principal L. Nelson Burton said that
most AP students are making more progress than
they would in an ordinary class and that they
are feeling a sense of accomplishment despite
their low scores.

Given the emergence of this unconventional use
of AP, the Challenge Index has been split this
year into two ranked lists, one for schools
with college-level-test passing rates of 10
percent or higher, and one for schools with
single-digit rates. The four top schools on the
new Catching Up list, in descending order, are:
Coolidge, the Multicultural High School in the
District, the D.C charter school Friendship
Collegiate and Prince George's County's
Crossland High School. The four top schools on
the main list are: Woodlawn, Montgomery
County's Richard Montgomery High School, Clarke
County (Va.) High School and Montgomery's
Wootton High School.

Officials of several schools on the Catching Up
list said they had no problem with the change,
although one principal, who asked not to be
identified for fear of being criticized in his
district, said it reminded him of separate-but-
equal school segregation. Arsallah Shairzay,
dean of early college and AP programs at
Friendship Collegiate, suggested that the index
be revised to give credit for the passing
grades his student receive in University of
District of Columbia classes.

Asked why some high-poverty schools did much
better on the AP exams than others, educators
at several schools said more affluent districts
or schools with more affluent students had more
experienced AP teachers and provided better
preparation in lower grades before students
reached AP courses.

In Montgomery County, for instance, 48 percent
of students at Wheaton High School had family
incomes low enough to qualify for federal lunch
subsidies. This was comparable to Crossland,
with 42 percent low-income students, and the
District's McKinley Tech, with 53 percent low-
income students. But 32 percent of AP tests at
Wheaton received passing scores, compared with
3 percent at Crossland and 5 percent at
McKinley. "AP for us is a schoolwide effort,"
Wheaton Principal Kevin Lowndes said. "It has
to start with the ninth-grade teacher who helps
the student learn the necessary skills."

Only five non-charter public schools in the
District had AP passing rates of 10 percent or
above: Banneker (27 percent), Ellington (26
percent), Roosevelt (10 percent), School
Without Walls (55 percent) and Wilson (46
percent). Of that group, Banneker, an academic
magnet school, had the highest participation
rate on the main Challenge Index list and was
ranked 26th out of 166 regional schools.



— Jay Mathews
Washington Post
2008-12-11


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