Press Releases

College Board Honors Advanced Placement Community on Program's 50th Anniversary

To Issue Tuition Waivers for Teacher Professional Development

05/26/05

NEW YORK—A yearlong celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Advanced Placement Program® (AP®) will kick off at the AP National Conference in Houston, Texas, in July. Growing numbers of schools, teachers, and students have come to see the Advanced Placement Program as a way to open the doors of higher education to a larger and more diverse group of academically prepared young people. The Program will honor the students and educators who have made the AP Program a success and who will shape its future.

"There is a large community that has given the AP Program its rich quality and promising future," said Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board. "They include high school teachers, administrators, and students as well as the college faculty who invest the courses and exams with such depth, rigor, and relevance; the Readers who score them; and the admissions professionals who recognize the value of the Program."

In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary, the College Board will issue tuition waivers in the fall of 2005 that will allow each school to send an AP teacher or a teacher of a preliminary course to an AP or Pre-AP® professional development workshop at no cost.

"We're privileged to honor many of the best teachers in the country," said Caperton. "The tuition waiver for future and current AP teachers is one measure of our appreciation and demonstrates our commitment to helping teachers realize their full potential."

Supporting professional development that helps to groom future AP teachers ultimately helps entire schools. "Because AP teachers are highly trained, they will better serve all students, not just those taking AP courses," said Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. "It's important that students both in large school districts and in rural ones have access to AP."

The Hope of the Future

Creating Successful College Graduates Through the AP Program

For students from many backgrounds, the challenge of AP courses helps to focus students' interests as they begin to plan for their future. In fact, recent research following AP students into college shows that these students are more likely than other students to take additional courses in the academic departments for which they received AP credit, and to major in the subject of their AP course work. AP courses, modeled on rigorous, evidence-based standards, give students the preparation they need to not only enter college but also to graduate. Research has shown that 45 percent of students who take one AP Exam graduate on time from college, and 61 percent of students who take two or more AP Exams graduate on time from college. By way of contrast, only 29 percent of other college students earn a bachelor's degree within four years.

Over the years, the College Board has expanded early access to AP courses by introducing Pre-AP Initiatives and AP Vertical Teams® to help students in the middle grades gain access to knowledge and skills that enable them to take on advanced studies in high school.

AP Program Enhancements

The core philosophy of the Advanced Placement Program has centered on engagement in continuous comprehensive improvement for AP teachers and students. Key recent and planned improvements are:

• Introduction of New Courses in World Languages and Cultures. Developmental work on new AP courses in Italian (which will debut in the fall), and in Chinese and Japanese (coming in 2006-07) is nearing completion, and professional development workshops are being provided. To help schools wishing to build a course of study in Chinese and Japanese, the College Board is providing scholarships for teachers to receive Pre-AP and AP training.
• New Requirements to Ensure Authenticity. Effective in fall 2006, all schools wishing to use the "AP" designation in course titles and on student transcripts must qualify by completing an annual AP Course Audit conducted by the College Board. This will ensure that schools starting or expanding AP programs use the "AP" label only on those college-level courses that meet criteria appropriate to the "AP" designation. The AP Course Audit requirements will be circulated within the AP community beginning in July 2005.
• Enhanced Feedback for Teachers. Beginning in August 2005, AP Instructional Planning Reports will be sent to all schools offering AP courses. The report will allow principals, department chairs, and AP teachers to compare the performance of their students on key topics within each AP Exam against the performance of students in AP courses worldwide.
• Curricular Redesign. Reflecting the College Board's advocacy of continuing improvement, some AP science and history courses are undergoing redesign to promote inquiry-based deep study and learning in response to the recommendations of educators in these fields.

A Cause for Celebration

Bridging the Achievement Gap

Over the past 5 years, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have succeeded in helping a greater percentage of students demonstrate college-level mastery of an AP course during their high school years. Key highlights include:

• In the state of New York, more than 20 percent of the class of 2004 demonstrated college-level mastery of at least one AP course during their high school years;
• In California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Utah between 18 and 20 percent of the class of 2004 demonstrated college-level mastery of at least one AP course during their high school years; and
• States that have seen the greatest positive change in the percentage of students demonstrating college-level mastery of an AP course are Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, and Washington.

Although African American, Latino, and Native American students have been significantly underrepresented in AP classrooms nationwide, a great deal of progress has been made in increasing their participation in AP. For example, there have been major increases in African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American students scoring 3 or higher on AP Examinations:

• Between 1996 and 2004, there has been a 164 percent increase in the number of grades of 3 or higher earned by African American students on AP Examinations (8,696 in 1996 versus 22,923 in 2004);
• Between 1996 and 2004, there has been a 197 percent increase in grades of 3 or higher earned by Hispanic/Latino students on AP Examinations (29,689 in 1996 versus 88,217 in 2004); and
• Among Native American students, there has been a 115 percent increase from 1996 to 2004 in grades of 3 or higher on AP Examinations (1,416 in 1996 versus 3,048 in 2004).

Why AP Is Here to Stay

A History of Academic Excellence

Even as AP undergoes continuous improvement and growth, its core aim—academic achievement for all students—remains its central tenet. It is on this basis that comments on the early success of the AP Program made by James B. Conant, the influential former Harvard president, still ring true more than 40 years later: "The success of the Advanced Placement Program is one of the most encouraging signs of real improvement in our educational system... To my mind, every high school ought to strive to provide the opportunity for Advanced Placement in at least one subject." Today, as the AP Program celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, participation in the Program is at an all-time high, with participating schools offering, on average, seven different AP courses for their students.

Yesterday and today, AP courses set the standard for academic achievement, though the numbers have changed dramatically. In 1955, 1,300 students took 2,200 end-of-course AP Examinations; this spring, more than 1.2 million students took more than 2.1 million AP Examinations worldwide.

"Despite this growth, much remains to be done," said Trevor Packer, executive director of the AP Program. "Many of the nation's students are seeking the promise of a college education; many more deserve access to the high school experiences that will best prepare them to persist in obtaining their degrees."

While 57 percent of the 2004 high school graduates entered college last fall, only 21 percent had taken an AP course in high school. And the majority of students taking AP classes today take just one course during their entire high school careers.

The College Board's Advanced Placement Program allows students to pursue college-level studies while they are still in high school. Students of different interests and backgrounds can choose from among 34 courses and exams in 19 subject areas to demonstrate their knowledge of rigorous academic curricula. Based on their performance on AP Examinations, students can earn college credit, advanced placement, or both.

Additional information about the AP Program may be found on AP Central® at apcentral.collegeboard.com/.

For further press inquiries, contact the College Board Public Affairs Department at (212) 713-8052.