Monday, February 14, 2011

Advanced Placement scores increase in Oregon

Kimberly Melton

More Oregon students get high marks on Advanced Placement tests

http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2011/02/more_oregon_students_get_high.html

Date Retrieved: 2/14/2011

Topic: Advanced Placement classes

2010 held a record high for Oregon student enrollment in Advanced Placement courses. The College Board’s AP Report to the Nation outlines a 6% increase in AP student performance from the previous 2009 year. The article focuses on the increase of performance and enrollment of students in low-income, ethnic and underrepresented communities. Intended Audience: Everyone.

Key Points:


-There has been a gradual increase in Oregon students participating in the AP program since 2001

-US History is outlined as the most popular AP exam, with English as second.

-Oregon has the highest passing rates in exams for Chinese Language & Culture, Studio Art, Calculus BC and Japanese Language and Culture.

Relevance: As future educators, I think it is important to encourage students to participate in AP courses, not to flaunt passing test scores, but to offer students richer and deeper education and subject content—assuming the classes are designed for these reasons. An important thing to keep in mind is that students who pass these exams with scores of 3 or higher are often given college credit, helping their chances in being accepted to colleges and universities, and preparing them for college level work. I am curious to see what kinds of programs schools are using to encourage students of low-income and underrepresented communities to take AP classes. I am also curious to see if these schools are following through completely—helping underrepresented students get accepted to colleges-- not just stopping the encouragement once the test scores come back.

2 comments:

  1. Go Oregon!

    There is another AP-related article buried a few pages back in the blog, I think maybe Jessica posted it. This article ties in with that one in one interesting spot: the writer above mentions that the AP test with the greatest participation in Oregon is the US History test. According to that earlier article, that is also one of the most challenging (unless I am mixing up US and World History AP tests...), not because of the nature of the content but because of the emphasis on memorization of facts. I'm not sure what exactly it says about Oregon students that the highest rates of testing are in one of the most challenging tests, but it's an interesting statistic.

    Melton, in the article above, also mentions that ODE highlighted Reynolds High School for doing a particularly good job. I was interested in the same thing you were, Javier, so I poked around a little to see if I could figure out how exactly they encourage, retain, and hopefully follow-up on AP students. They have both a bare-bones program brochure, and one that talks a little more about the philosophy and structure of their program. The page at http://www.reynolds.k12.or.us/rhs/assets/files/academics/RHS%20AP%20Program%20Outline.pdf gives the clearest answer to our question, when they mention along with the AP program the "RHS post-secondary planning" that they offer.

    I am a fan of the AP programs. It will be fun to keep an eye out for articles like these. Thanks for the review!

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  2. In high school I took IB History, I don't really know why, but I would have to agree that it was my most challenging class. I'm not sure how different the course structures and content lectures between IB and AP, but I would have to say that the thing that was so challenging for me was keeping up with all of the facts they wanted us to retain. Our class also included art of western civilization, so not only did I have to memorize dates but also know art history! It was interesting hearing Jeff and Paul talk about their experiences with History and what it should be, to me, it was never about analyzing events and discussing them, it was "this is what happened. Nothing else. Moving on.." Which is a shame, because it made have a strong dislike for history subjects...Thanks for the link to Reynolds High!

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