Despite the push to broaden diversity among students who take Advanced Placement courses and exams, one of the oft-cited consequences, historically, is that overall pass rates for exams tend to decline. However, a small number of school districts have bucked the trend, according to a new report, titled The Road to Equity: Expanding AP Access And Success For African-American Students.
Released recently by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the report discovered that six school districts that increased or kept steady their participation levels in AP courses also saw their AP exam pass rates among African-American students improve enough to eventually catch up to their White peers.
The school districts were identified from among 75 considered eligible for the Broad Prize, which is awarded each year to urban school districts that demonstrate the greatest overall performance and improvement in student achievement while reducing achievement gaps among low-income and minority students. The six school districts were the Cobb County School District of Georgia the Fulton County School System of Georgia, the Garland Independent School District in Texas, the Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky, the Orange County Public Schools in Florida and the San Diego Unified School District in California.
The report says the Garland Independent School District and four other school districts experienced the same trend with Hispanic students.
If there’s a downside to the findings, it’s that the progress in the districts has been “glacial” in terms of pace, according to the report.
Indeed, the average increases in pass rates among African-American students in the six identified districts ranged from 1 to 4 percent from 2008 to 2011, and the increase in AP participation was from 0 to 1 percent during the same time period.
Nevertheless, the progress still shows what can be done when a concerted effort is made to prepare students for the rigor required to do well on the AP exams, according to Nancy Que, the author of the report.
