Education Week - October 15, 2014 - 6

AP PARTICIPATION AND PERFORMANCE
As SAT Scores Stall,
College Board Pitches
For More AP Access
By Caralee J. Adams
With stagnant SAT scores and
many students with the potential
to succeed in Advanced Placement
classes not enrolling in them, the
College Board last week underscored
its resolve to get more students
on the path to college through
expanded access to its programs.
The 2014 College Board Program
Results combines the results of the
SAT, the AP tests, and the Preliminary
SAT/National Merit Scholarship
Qualifying Test for the first time, in
an effort to demonstrate how the
programs are interrelated and can
be used to encourage greater participation.
Officials
highlighted "missed opportunities,"
such as students and
educators who fail to leverage early
information from the PSAT to sign
promising students up for rigorous
classes.
Nearly 5 percent of students who
were on target to meet the SAT's
college-readiness benchmarks as
juniors-29,000 of the 609,000 who
took the PSAT-fell off target by their
senior year when they took the SAT.
The report also found that as many
as four in 10 students in the class of
2014 with AP potential did not take
an AP course for which they showed
likelihood of success.
"With earlier intervention and additional
supports, these kids could
have been ready to succeed," said
Cyndie Schmeiser, the chief of assessment
for the New York Citybased
College Board.
Overall, SAT participation was up
less than 1 percent, from 1.66 million
students last year to 1.67 million,
according to the latest report. Meanwhile,
ACT Inc., based in Iowa City,
Iowa, continues to expand its market
share, with 1.85 million students
taking the rival ACT exam among the
graduates of the class of 2014.
This year, the average SAT score
was 1497, out of 2400 points, compared
with 1498 in 2013. Critical
reading increased 1 point, while
average scores in math and writing
each fell by 1 point. The share of
students who met the SAT's collegeand
career-readiness benchmark
was 42.6 percent, a slight decrease
from 42.7 percent the previous year.
The news was brighter for the AP
program, with exam participation
growing 3.8 percent, to 1.48 million
Growing percentages of students are taking-and passing-Advanced Placement
exams. The share of 11th and 12th graders in public high schools who score
a 3 or better on at least one AP test has nearly doubled over the past decade,
from 7.6 percent in May 2004 to 13.2 percent in May 2014.
21.9
Percentage of U.S. public school
11th and 12th graders ...
20
taking an AP exam
15
12.0
10
scoring 3+ on an AP exam
7.6
5
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
students, in 2014. The increase was
nearly double that for traditionally
underrepresented minority students
and low-income students compared
with 2013. Overall, 21.9 percent of
public high school 11th and 12th
graders took an AP exam, up from
20.1 percent last year.
Expansion 'Significant'
Robert Rothman, a senior fellow
with the Alliance for Excellent Education,
a Washington policy and advocacy
group, said the expansion of
AP to more disadvantaged students
is "very significant." More attention
is being paid to Advanced Placement
as a measure of high school quality,
prompting an increased push for enrollment,
he said.
In the past decade, the percentage
of students receiving a passing score
on an AP exam has nearly doubled,
growing from 7.6 percent in 2004 to
13.2 percent in 2014, the report says.
For the PSAT/NMSQT, 3.7 million
high school sophomores and juniors
took the exam at school in fall
2013-up from 3.6 million the previous
year. This year's report shows
that nearly 500,000 students taking
the test from the class of 2016 have
the aptitude to excel in an AP course.
Using the scores that students
earn on the PSAT, the College Board
identifies students with potential to
excel in AP and has been providing
schools with those rosters to help
boost enrollment.
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"There are a lot of principals that
are constantly looking for opportunities
to get kids with potential into
AP courses, but clearly there is a lot
more work to be done," said Bob Farrace,
a spokesperson for the National
Association of Secondary School
Principals, based in Reston, Va. "You
really need to start earlier than high
school. You can't expect kids to show
up and enroll if they haven't already
built the attitude that they are going
to take a rigorous course."
The AP program is not the only avenue
for students to take challenging
courses, said Joseph DiMartino, the
president of the Center for Secondary
School Redesign, a Providence, R.I.,
organization that brings technical
assistance, professional development,
research, and support to schools. "I
am partial to early college where kids
are actually taking college courses,"
said Mr. DiMartino, who is concerned
that the growth of AP classes may
squeeze out other options for increasing
college readiness.
Changing Commitment
College Board President and CEO
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10/3/14 8:26 AM
David Coleman said the organization
is positioning itself to ensure
students' successful transition to
higher education.
"One might say, 'Hey, our job is to
design good courses, and then we are
done. It is not our fault who ends up
in these courses,' " said Mr. Coleman.
"But it is the view of this College
Board that while it may not be our
fault, it's most certainly our problem."
SOURCE: College Board
He highlighted the board's All In
Campaign and AP STEM Access as
initiatives aimed at getting broader
representation of students in AP.
The College Board also subsidizes
testing costs to promote equity. This
year, nearly 24 percent of students
took the SAT using a fee waiver, up
from 23 percent in 2013, according
to the new report.
Still, racial gaps persist with AP
and SAT performance, with little
change this year compared with
last. In 2014, just 15.8 percent of
African-American students met the
SAT benchmark, while 23.4 percent of
Hispanics did and 42.6 percent of students
overall, according to the report.
Lindsey Tepe, a program associate
with education policy programs
for the New America Foundation,
a Washington-based public policy
group, said the College Board has
the buy-in from higher education.
"Colleges accept these assessments,"
using the SAT for admissions and offering
credit for AP to varying degrees,
she said. Still, students who
are pushed to enroll in AP and fail
the exam may be better off in a
course where they build solid foundational
knowledge of the subject,
she added.
Many educators are holding out
hope that students will do better on
the redesign of the SAT, which will
look more like the curriculum-based
ACT, when it debuts in 2016.
Jeff Fuller, the president of the
National Association for College
Admission Counseling in Arlington,
Va., and the director of student
recruitment at the University of
Houston, said College Board officials
have sought feedback from his organization's
members in an attempt to
boost student readiness.
"What colleges are looking at
is not just getting students into,
but also through college," said Mr.
Fuller, adding that having the
College Board results bundled is
helpful when assessing the big picture
of student performance. Colleges
are looking for partnerships
with school districts so students take
advantage of learning opportunities
that can improve outcomes, he said.
Scan this tag with your
smartphone for a link to
"2014 College Board
Program Results."
www.edweek.org/links
13.2
5%
The percentage of
students who were
on target to meet SAT
college- and careerreadiness
benchmarks
in 11th grade, but fell
off target by the fall of
their senior year.
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Education Week - October 15, 2014

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