AP
tests present a study in contrasts
Few in poor districts ever take
the exams
Wednesday, February 08, 2006 • BY JOHN MOONEY •
Star-Ledger Staff
While New Jersey may be a leader in how
its high school students do on Advanced Placement tests,
don't tell that to students in some of the state's poorest
cities.
According to new state data, only a tiny
fraction of the students in cities like Newark and East
Orange ever take the college-level subject tests -- or even
have the chance to take AP courses that would lead to taking
the tests.
The reasons are many, from how the
students are prepared in the lower grades to the districts
not offering the courses in the first place. In several
districts, steps are being taken to try to change
that.
But it remains in stark contrast to the
picture at the other extreme, in which the Advanced
Placement programs are almost a de facto curriculum in
suburban high schools like Montgomery or
Princeton.
At those two schools, as many as a third
of the juniors and seniors took the AP tests last year,
according to the data, and a menu of AP classes is not just
plentiful but demanded.
Such disparities are the underside of the
national report released yesterday that gave a glowing
picture of the vaunted AP program, with both its
participation and success rates on the rise in virtually
every state, including New Jersey.
New Jersey saw its passing rates on the
tests rise from 12.9 percent in 2000 to 16.5 percent in
2005, the 10th-highest rate in the country, according to the
"Advanced Placement Report to the Nation." The national
average was 14 percent last year, up from 10 percent in
2000.
Nationwide, nearly 610,000 students took
at least one AP test last year, up from 405,000 in
2000.
"It is our hope that the AP program can
serve as an anchor for increasing rigor in our schools,"
College Board president Gaston Caperton said at a news
conference in Washington, D.C. "Rigor can be maintained
while increasing student participation."
Wide disparities remain within that
participation, however; less-advantaged schools have hardly
been swept up in the AP wave.
For instance, 50 New Jersey high schools
-- almost all in poor districts -- saw fewer than 5 percent
of their students in the high-level programs, according to
the state's Report Card released last week.
A case in point was Newark, the state's
largest school district but only this year able to say that
every one of its high schools offers at least one AP
course.
Some of its selective high schools, led
by University and Science, provide an array of courses and
see as many as a quarter of the students take the tests. But
Weequahic High School only this year started a full AP class
in English literature, in which 21 students enrolled.
Several schools still have no AP calculus class, the math
standard.
The reasons lie in the lower grades,
Newark school officials said, where enrollment in honors
courses -- a rung below AP -- is only starting to grow.
Without students in honors courses, a shot at AP is
unrealistic, so the district has put the focus there
first.
"That's how you begin to prepare
youngsters to know they can take the class and do well in
it, but also to have the background," said Gayle Griffin,
Newark's assistant superintendent.
"If you don't do that, there is no way
the youngsters would feel they could do well in that class,"
she said. "It's critical that we first have the honors
classes."
The McNair Academic High School in Jersey
City is evidence that the students in New Jersey's cities
can excel on the tests.
McNair, a selective high school where
students must apply for admission, last year had the highest
rate of participation in AP exams of any high school in the
state, with more than two-thirds of its juniors and seniors
taking at least one test.
On tests as varied as art history and
economics, 240 earned a score of at least a 3 out of the
maximum 5 points, according to the state data. Most colleges
require a minimum of 3 for the test to count toward college
credit.
"All of our students are college
preparatory, and to give them the biggest opportunity, you
really have to provide this," said Edward Slattery, McNair's
vice principal. "It's really an engine that helps pull the
school."
President Bush in his State of the Union
speech last week brought attention to the gap in AP
offerings when he suggested the programs must be expanded to
ensure the nation's competitiveness in math and
science.
His proposed federal budget included $123
million for expanding AP programs. "It is the key to us for
remaining the strong economic power we are today," said
Thomas Luce, a U.S. assistant education
secretary.
Expanded AP offerings are also a goal in
the state's program to reform urban high schools falling
under the state Supreme Court's Abbott v. Burke school
equity rulings.
Under new regulations, for instance, all
high school freshmen in the Abbott districts will need to
take Algebra I and pass a year-end course.
"AP courses come naturally at the end of
a rigorous curriculum, but you have to start at the
beginning," said state acting Education Commissioner Lucille
Davy. "Without pre-algebra in eighth grade, they won't be on
a path to get to AP calculus in high school."
John Mooney covers education. He may be reached at
jmooney@starledger.com or (973) 392-1548.
© 2006 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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