Earlier this month, a USA TODAY analysis found that while more high school students nationwide are taking Advanced Placement exams, a growing number are failing, particularly in the South. According to the analysis, last year students took a record 2.9 million exams through the AP program, which challenges high school students with college-level courses.
Depending on a college’s criteria, the article states, students who pass the exam with a 3 (on a point scale of 1 to 5) may obtain college credit. According to the College Board Web site, over 90 percent of four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. provide credit for qualifying scores. The University of Texas-Pan American is one such university.
The newspaper’s overall analysis finds that last year 41.5 percent of students nationwide earned a failing score of 1 or 2, up from 36.5 percent in 1999. In the South, a region defined by the Census as spanning from Texas to Delaware, 48.4 percent earned a failing score.
According to Vanessa Valdez, assistant director of admissions at UTPA, the number of students entering the university with AP credit in 2009 stood at 17 percent – a decline from 24 percent in 2007 and 21 percent in 2004.
Valdez was unsure whether the decline is due to the failure rate, and suggested some more likely factors.
“The cause for the dip from 2007 to 2009 is due to students taking the actual college course through either Dual Enrollment or Concurrent Enrollment while in high school,” Valdez said. “So, more students are opting to enroll in an actual course rather than take the AP exam.”
Dr. Maria Reyes, professor at the College of Education at UTPA, deems the analysis valid. She believes that more students taking the AP exam is a positive thing, but that the failure rate is likely due to lack of preparation.
“It means that more students from diverse backgrounds are taking the test, which used to be reserved for middle and upper class students,” said Reyes, who has been at UTPA since fall 2006. “Unfortunately, the results also reflect that these students are not being well-prepared for these exams.”
With the findings published in the article, questions are being raised as to whether schools are pushing students into AP classes without adequate preparation and whether schools are training teachers to properly deliver advanced material.
Reyes disagrees that students are being pressured to enroll in AP classes and take the exams, arguing that they are only taking advantage of all the available opportunities to obtain college credit.
“I do not believe high schools are pressuring students, in fact, I think it’s the other way around,” Reyes said. “Many of my own teacher-certification students in the high school program tell me they felt left out because their districts in the high schools they attended in the Valley did not participate in these programs.”
As a mother and former high school teacher at Eagle Pass High School, Reyes feels students should be challenged, especially during high school, in preparation for college. Teacher quality and course content, she said, are vital to ensuring student success.
“As a mother of four children, I saw how my own kids were not being intellectually challenged during their last two years of high school,” she said. “We need to better prepare teachers, promote critical thinking skills, and weed out those candidates that do not demonstrate the appropriate dispositions to be teachers. We also need to ensure that the academic rigor in these courses is consistent.”
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