Annual Report Shows Gains in AP Coursework

Yesterday, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released their annual report, The Condition of Education. The Congressionally-mandated report showcases statistics from multiple aspects of the U.S. education system.


The 48 indicators included in the report cover topics from student achievement to school environment and from early childhood through postsecondary education. General statistics show that U.S. public school enrollment is becoming increasingly diverse. In addition, more individuals are enrolling in postsecondary education, and people are earning more bachelor’s degrees than in the past. The special focus of this year’s report is on the coursework of American high school students.
The report shows that the number of students taking Advanced Placement (AP) courses in high schools is rising. Specifically, more black and Hispanic students in public and private high schools are taking AP exams. The report shows a 213% jump over the nine years of the study (1997-2005) in the number of Hispanic students taking the college-level AP tests, and a 177% increase over the same period for African-American students. However, the numbers do not highlight the fact that there were a low number of African-American and Hispanic students taking the AP exams to begin with and that they still lag behind other racial groups.
Nationally, among all racial groups, the number of students taking the AP tests more than doubled over the same period, growing from 567,000 in 1997 to 1.2 million two years ago. The large increase in test-takers caused only small decreases in overall AP test scores. The report shows that the proportion of students who earned a 3 or better on the college-level exams fell from 65% to 59% over the nine-year study period.
More students are also taking advanced mathematics; presently 50% of high school graduates have taken courses more advanced than Algebra II, up from 26% in 1982. Females are more likely to have completed advanced coursework, although the gender difference disappears at the calculus level. There was a similar gain, and a similar gap, in advanced science coursework. Despite these gains in the number of credits taken overall in various subjects, and especially in more advanced courses, National Assessment of Educational Progress scores were virtually flat for 17-year-olds in both reading and math since the early 1970s. Still, there were gains in NAEP scores for 9- and 13-year-olds in both subject areas.
The special analysis in the report also presents data from the other side of the high school achievement spectrum, by looking into the trajectory of those students who dropped out of high school. According to that report, the 9th graders who eventually became dropouts had earned an average of 5.1 credits during the 2000-01 school year. In comparison, the 9th graders who went on to graduate on time earned 6.6 credits that year. The gaps widened in 10th grade, with dropouts earning an average of 4.6 credits, compared with the average 6.7 credits earned by their on-track peers.
Other statistics from the annual report include:
• At least at the high school level, the “narrowing” of the curricula that some critics predicted would result from the federal No Child Left Behind Act had yet to materialize by 2004. In both public and private high schools, 2004 high school graduates took more social studies, foreign language, and arts classes—as well as the core English, mathematics, and science classes on which the law focuses—during their high school years than did the graduates of 1982.
• Public school enrollment in prekindergarten-12th grade is projected to set new records each year from 2007 to 2016, when an estimated 53.3 million children are expected to be in public schools.
• The number of children ages 5 to 17 who spoke a language other than English at home more than doubled between 1979 and 2005.
• Minority students accounted for more than half of the growth in the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded between the 1976-77 school year and 2004-05.
Resources:
Andy Guess, “The Yearly Report Card,” Inside Higher Ed, June 1, 2007.
Debra Viadero, “Condition of Education Finds Surge in Minorities’ AP Test-Taking,” Education Week, May 31. 2007.
Author: SAS