AP Scores, Program in Focus at School Committee Debate

classes that combine various levels within a subject, including AP level, and AP exam scores led to a lengthy debate between the and high school administrators at last week's School Committee meeting.

During a wide-ranging Melrose High School update at the commitee's meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 7, Principal Joe Dillon spoke about challenges in the school's scheduling process. The first challenge is low-enrolled courses, which Dillon pegged as classes with less than 15 students, which present two options: not running the course at all, as has happened with some elective offerings, or combining the course the another course in the same content area.

An example of the latter option was last year's combining of AP German, with six students, with German V, with 10 students, Dillon said. Four of Melrose High School's five language offerings have combined AP and Level V classes, he added.

The second challenge is staffing. Dillon said the high school's enrollment has climbed by 100 students over the past three years, leading to increasingly crowded classrooms.

This year, there are 25 classes at Melrose High School with 30 students or more, Dillon said. He and Guidance Director John Buxton said they believed AP Calculus is the only AP class with more than 30 students.

Pointing to the combined German AP and Level V course, School Committee member Carrie Kourkoumelis stated concerns over the AP exam scores resulting from that course. According to the College Board, students who earn AP exam scores of 3 or above are generally considered to be qualified to receive college credit and/or placement into advanced courses.

Kourkoumelis noted out of the seven students who took the AP German exam, one received a score of 4. Two students received a score of 1 and four received a score of 4. She said the teachers of those combined courses "cannot deliver a college level curriculum" when other levels are in the same classroom as the AP level.

"It's a serious thing if we're expecting parents to pay $85 for a test and saying we offer a course that's a college level course, and we're combining it with three or four other levels," she said. "I don't see this as a workable model. I'd like us to re-evaluate. I think we're doing a disservice to our students."

Challenging students vs. providing full AP curriculum

On the other side of the argument, committee member Kristin Thorp said that combining AP and other level courses in one classroom has the benefit of challenging those students and increasing the overall rigor of the school's curriculum.

Thorp added that at the high school PTO meeting the night before the committee's meeting, Stella Cocchiara, chairwoman of the Melrose High School foreign language department, spoke to PTO members about students "all getting an AP curriculum" through the combined courses.

"It's easier to teach the higher level, where the kids really are stepping up, and take breaks periodically to slow down a little bit for kids who aren't yet AP level," Thorp said. "I use it as an example because when we raise expectations, the students step up. It sometimes takes a little while to happen ... I fall in the camp that as long as we have rigorous placement criteria, which is another topic, we're giving kids the opportunity to have exposure to the AP curriculum."

Committee member J.D. LaRock said is struck him as "impossible" to deliver a full AP curriculum within a combined class.

Dillon said that the combined classes are "not an ideal situation" and that "it isn't producing sufficient results looking at it based on AP scores."

However, he said that scores on the AP exam are not the only measure of success, although he wants the scores to increase. As an example, Dillon said he privately spoke with the 17 students who received a 1 on the AB Calculus exam and asked if they would've not taken the course has they known they would receive a 1 on the exam. Each student said they still would have taken the course.

"They said the experience they had in that class was well worth any score they received," Dillon said. "There is a human factor when it comes to scheduling: students wanting to take a challenge and maybe go beyond what the're able to do."

Raising average AP exam scores

Meanwhile, while some average AP exam scores have stayed strong or improved over the past five years—such as English Language or English Literature—other average scores have stagnated or declined. (See PDFs of the 2010 AP scores and the AP score trends from 2006-2010 attached to this article.)

For example, the high school's average AP calculus test scores have trended down the past five years as the number of students taking those tests has risen. In 2006, 13 students took the calculus AB exam, with an average score of 3.46. Last year, 46 students took that exam, with an average scores of 2.65.

Buxton said there is "some evidence to suggest" that the more AP exams are given in a particular subject area, the lower the average score, "however, that is not always the case."

Regarding the AP foreign language exams, Buxton said given the "pretty low number of exams given, in general I don't know you can say there's a trend."

LaRock commended the high school for its improvement last year in the percentage of students scoring a 3 or higher on AP exams. He added that "there's a good case to be made" that the high school has a strong program in English Language and English Literature; the average score on both exams has stayed above 3 for the past five years.

On the other hand, LaRock said "there are a whole lot of exams" where the average score is below 3 and individual instances where nobody obtained a passing score.

"It doesn't paint a picture of a healthy program overall," he said. "There are multiple reasons why you have AP courses, and a part of it is surely giving students opportunity, but another is to enable students to get college credit.  What does this tell you?"

Dillon responded that if the high school made their AP program more selective, scores would be "significantly better," but if the high school wants to challenge students at the highest level, a more selective program would impact that goal.

"But it's not a dichotomous question," LaRock responded. "One way to look at the challenge is to make it more restrictive. The other is we're going to set a high standard and change instruction. We've adopted that mantra in the context of Meeting the Needs of All Learners."

Dillon said that his answer "may have sounded black and white," but stressed again that AP exams are "one set of data that determines success or failure." He also said that the school must exam the program leading up to the AP exam, such as the proposed changing of the school's math course schedule.

"What we've been doing for last three years is to address exactly what you're saying," Dillon said to LaRock. "Demand higher expectations and classes that are rigorous classes and those students who meet that challenge will be successful."

Affect of AP exam scores on college admissions

In terms of college admissions, LaRock, who works at Northeastern University, said that he spoke with the university's senior vice president, who told him that at Northeastern, 50 percent of incoming students have at least three AP exam scores. (Editor's note: the preceding sentence was corrected to "at least three AP exam scores.")

"Relative to competition they face, if a student comes in with a 1, there's a high likelihood that will disadvantage them," he said. "It may not be a dispositive factor, but in the absence of knowing the reason they got a 1 is because they didn't have a true AP course, they might be penalized."

Committee member Don Constantine rebutted that he's in the midst of going through college evaluations and that college officials have told him they look to see if the student's high school has challenged them and the student is taking AP courses, even if they're not going to pass. He also added that most of the Melrose High School students who took the AB Calculus exam are juniors.

"If you look at a bell curve, I wouldn't expect 50 percent of your student body to be performing at the college level as juniors or seniors," Constantine said.

There's also a link between AP courses and the PSATs. Dillon said that the PSATs are considered a "solid determinant" of which students should take AP courses.

Dillon said high school administrators have a meeting scheduled on Jan. 6 with a representative from the College Board to talk about access to AP courses. Buxton also said the school wants more students to take the PSATs and is examining giving the PSAT during the school day; however, students typically pay for the PSAT themselves.

The school is charged $12 per exam and paying for all the students' PSATs would cost approximately $4,000, Dillon added.

"We typically charge a fee for the PSAT and we get billed by the College Board for the number of exams we order," Buxton said. "I don't know if we can force students to take it, but we want to give them the opportunity to take it during the school day."

Kourkoumelis agreed that more students taking the PSAT is "very important," noting that the exam has resulted in improved success rates on the SAT.

"I think there is another incentive here: that the students who do well in their sophomore year (on the PSAT) can qualify for National Merit Scholarship and that's significant," she said, drawing an affirmative nod from Superintendent Joe Casey. "It's especially important financially for families to seek every possible kind of gain here. It's also why the AP is important, as college credit is a significant financial savings for a family."