(Advanced Placement Exam) Report to the Nation

College Board ^ | February 2009

[reaganaut1]

...

An equity and excellence gap appears when traditionally underserved students comprise a smaller percentage of the successful student group than the percentage these students represent in the graduating class. For example, if 20 percent of students in a state’s graduating class are African American, true equity and excellence would not be achieved until at least 20 percent of the students scoring 3 or higher on AP Exams are African American.

• 18 states have closed the equity and excellence gap for Hispanic or Latino students. • 16 states have closed the equity and excellence gap for American Indian or Alaska Native students.

• While no state in the United States has closed the equity and excellence gap for African American students, the state of Alabama has seen the largest increase in the percentage of its successful AP student group who are African American. 7.1 percent of the successful student population in Alabama is African American, up from 4.5 percent in the class of 2003. Because data for low-income students in the total class of 2008 are not available, we are unable to report equity and excellence gaps for low-income students as defined above. However, more low-income students are participating and experiencing success in AP than ever before:

• 17.0 percent of AP examinees from the graduating class of 2008 were low-income students, up from 16.2 percent in the class of 2007 and 11.6 percent in the class of 2003.

• Low-income students made up 13.4 percent of the students experiencing success in AP from the graduating class of 2008, compared to 13.1 percent from the class of 2007 and 9.8 percent from the class of 2003.

[reaganaut1]

The report assumes that state governments have the responsibility of achieving equal outcomes on Advanced Placement exams for all groups, and that differences in results prove "inequity". They do not. There is no guarantee that equally good schools for all groups will produce equal results, because their are cultural differences between groups and because IMO there are probably intelligence differences between groups.

Bush's NCLB has the same problem.

[poinq]

There are intelligence differences between ethnic groups. But even though they are measured a thousand times you are not supposed to notice. Smart people are likely to have smart children. They do not have to have smart children. But they are far more likely to have smart children. And it does not matter what school you send them to. You cannot make a low IQ child into a high IQ child. You can stunt a high IQ child if you let the teachers union at them.

[Nervous Tick]

This is easy to achieve.

Take points from the hardest working white and Asian students, and add them to certain AA and Hispanic students’ scores.

Hey, it works with income...

[VRWCer]

I sure hope nobody from the NEA reads your post, for I fear a hijacking of your idea would be in the offing! (As in, let’s take away from the intelligent and diligent students’ excellent grades, and give a portion to the lazy or less gifted children, and then they will all have equally good grades, Kumbayah....)

[StayAt HomeMother]

This is an example conservative students can use in their social studies classes to illustrate a basic difference between socialism and capitalism.

Do we want to pool all our grades in this class and give everyone the resulting average? (Only poor performing students will vote for it.)

Then ask if the hard working students will continue to work hard if they know the fruits of their labors will be taken away from them. (Generally, no. Some students will continue to learn for their own sakes, but why bother turning in the homework?)

So what happens to the class average? It declines sharply.

Now who (other than the very weakest students) wants socialized grades?

[blau993]

Today's Washington Post article on the same subject noted, as it had to, that DC schools rank near the bottom of the heap and had achieved only a very modest gain. It then quoted a spokesperson for DC schools who said one must bear in mind that these numbers reflected only the DC public schools and did not include the City's charter schools.

The education establishment in DC has long been opposed to charter schools, criticizes them constantly, and fights their expansion every step of the way. But now it admits that they are getting the job done better than their public counterparts. Of course, charter schools also tend to siphon off those students whose parents really care about the quality of the education their children are getting, so it wouldn't be hugely surprising that they would do better even if all other things were equal.