DCPS AP and SAT score data from 2016-17 released

[Anonymous]

DP, I'd like to see the AP/SAT pass rates for Loudon County.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How could 25% of students at SWW fail to pass even one AP exam with a 3 or higher?

Bingo. That's what I want to know. I'm pretty sure my kid can get into that school now. Never mind Wilson, never wanted to go to Wilson.
How did the 25% kids get in? I can get 3 with my eyes closed and haven't been to school in 25 years, and no speaky English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How could 25% of students at SWW fail to pass even one AP exam with a 3 or higher?

For example, AP Eng Lang is a required course and test for all 11th graders at SWW. AP World and AP US History courses are also required at SWW. Perhaps a quarter of those kids are not a good fit for those courses?

Then shouldn’t they fail the class too?

No there are just some kids who bomb tests for various reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How could 25% of students at SWW fail to pass even one AP exam with a 3 or higher?

For example, AP Eng Lang is a required course and test for all 11th graders at SWW. AP World and AP US History courses are also required at SWW. Perhaps a quarter of those kids are not a good fit for those courses?

Then shouldn’t they fail the class too?

No there are just some kids who bomb tests for various reasons.

Which will catch up to them when they face final exams in college. The point of making students take AP exams in high school is to ensure they are ready for college.

[Anonymous]

Thinking that because you failed a standardized test means that you haven’t mastered the material is such in the box thinking. There are many ways to show mastery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How could 25% of students at SWW fail to pass even one AP exam with a 3 or higher?

For example, AP Eng Lang is a required course and test for all 11th graders at SWW. AP World and AP US History courses are also required at SWW. Perhaps a quarter of those kids are not a good fit for those courses?

Then shouldn’t they fail the class too?

No there are just some kids who bomb tests for various reasons.

And what are those reasons? I went to an application high school abroad. Nobody bomb a test, ever. You had no business being in that school if you bombed a test. 25% couldn't even get a 3?!
Few kids dropped out but because of discipline problems or problems with a certain teacher. Nobody dropped out because of they didn't do well on tests.
DC can't get enough kids together for it's best high school who would get at least 3? How? Is the school not good anymore? To be fair, I only know one person who graduated from SWW and he is a doctor now. He is very proud of the school.
This 25% failure rate makes me think that my own kid can get into the school unless the spots were made available to kids who wouldn't even get a 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thinking that because you failed a standardized test means that you haven’t mastered the material is such in the box thinking. There are many ways to show mastery.

Great. I hope those kids got up and showed their mastery some other way. I also hope they said why they couldn't show their mastery per that test.
You must be a lawyer. My kid has the same excuses at 10, very annoying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thinking that because you failed a standardized test means that you haven’t mastered the material is such in the box thinking. There are many ways to show mastery.

Great. I hope those kids got up and showed their mastery some other way. I also hope they said why they couldn't show their mastery per that test.
You must be a lawyer. My kid has the same excuses at 10, very annoying.

Ha! Not a lawyer. I’m a teacher. I have students that can show mastery of objectives but have a terrible time during tests. Your child sounds like they have spunk!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thinking that because you failed a standardized test means that you haven’t mastered the material is such in the box thinking. There are many ways to show mastery.

Great. I hope those kids got up and showed their mastery some other way. I also hope they said why they couldn't show their mastery per that test.
You must be a lawyer. My kid has the same excuses at 10, very annoying.

That's essentially the same excuse as was employed at Ballou; teachers were pressured to give students credit for passing classes with makeup work rather than the regular assignments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How could 25% of students at SWW fail to pass even one AP exam with a 3 or higher?

For example, AP Eng Lang is a required course and test for all 11th graders at SWW. AP World and AP US History courses are also required at SWW. Perhaps a quarter of those kids are not a good fit for those courses?

Then shouldn’t they fail the class too?

No there are just some kids who bomb tests for various reasons.

And what are those reasons? I went to an application high school abroad. Nobody bomb a test, ever. You had no business being in that school if you bombed a test. 25% couldn't even get a 3?!
Few kids dropped out but because of discipline problems or problems with a certain teacher. Nobody dropped out because of they didn't do well on tests.
DC can't get enough kids together for it's best high school who would get at least 3? How? Is the school not good anymore? To be fair, I only know one person who graduated from SWW and he is a doctor now. He is very proud of the school.
This 25% failure rate makes me think that my own kid can get into the school unless the spots were made available to kids who wouldn't even get a 3.

It is not hard to get into SWW. Also, it is widely believed that SWW has quotas by Ward so you’re not necessarily getting the brightest students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm highly disappointed in Wilson's AP passing rate. I'm curios why DCPS didn't break down the pass rates by FARMS, Race, ESOL, and other demographics.

Supposedly the honors-for-all at Wilson will magically turn those 1s and 2s into 4s and 5s. Just as I'm sure they are all "passing" 9th grade honors English and biology.

My mother taught AP English (elsewhere) for 20+ years and was a reader for those tests every June in Austin. Other teachers at her school (also my alma mater) served as readers as well in other subjects. They got great experience in seeing how other students approached the exam and learning fellow AP English teachers each year during that period. Do any DCPS teachers serve as readers? Selection back then had been based on the teacher's own student performance. The biology and chemistry teachers at my school had a decades-long streak of never having had a student score below a 4.

And for public school kids (or any student) getting a 4 or 5 can save tuition dollars. Some universities give a full year of college credit (6 credits) for a 5, or a semester credit for a 4. At Georgetown, I didn't earn credit, but I was able to place out of required 100-level courses and take much more interesting upper-level electives instead.

DC is doing a disservice by failing to prepare students properly for these exams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm highly disappointed in Wilson's AP passing rate. I'm curios why DCPS didn't break down the pass rates by FARMS, Race, ESOL, and other demographics.

Supposedly the honors-for-all at Wilson will magically turn those 1s and 2s into 4s and 5s. Just as I'm sure they are all "passing" 9th grade honors English and biology.

My mother taught AP English (elsewhere) for 20+ years and was a reader for those tests every June in Austin. Other teachers at her school (also my alma mater) served as readers as well in other subjects. They got great experience in seeing how other students approached the exam and learning fellow AP English teachers each year during that period. Do any DCPS teachers serve as readers? Selection back then had been based on the teacher's own student performance. The biology and chemistry teachers at my school had a decades-long streak of never having had a student score below a 4.

And for public school kids (or any student) getting a 4 or 5 can save tuition dollars. Some universities give a full year of college credit (6 credits) for a 5, or a semester credit for a 4. At Georgetown, I didn't earn credit, but I was able to place out of required 100-level courses and take much more interesting upper-level electives instead.

DC is doing a disservice by failing to prepare students properly for these exams.

If there is pressure to have everyone at a comprehensive high school pass, what will happen is that fewer students will be allowed to take APs.

However, IMO the magnet schools should be held to a higher standard.

[Anonymous]

I feel so bad for the kid at Ballou who managed to score a 3. What might he or she have done surrounded by more motivated peers and teacher with more time to teach the material rather than handling classroom management?

The AP scores by subject are interesting. There probably aren't more than a couple teachers handling AP chem in the whole district, given that only 95 kids took the test. I wonder why the pass rate on it was so much lower than for bio or physics--quality of the teaching, self selection as to who took the course or the test, something else? The nationwide score distribution does not support the idea that chem is a harder exam.

Also, props to whoever is teaching AP studio art and AP Latin. DCPS students outperformed the national distribution on those.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel so bad for the kid at Ballou who managed to score a 3. What might he or she have done surrounded by more motivated peers and teacher with more time to teach the material rather than handling classroom management?

The AP scores by subject are interesting. There probably aren't more than a couple teachers handling AP chem in the whole district, given that only 95 kids took the test. I wonder why the pass rate on it was so much lower than for bio or physics--quality of the teaching, self selection as to who took the course or the test, something else? The nationwide score distribution does not support the idea that chem is a harder exam.

Also, props to whoever is teaching AP studio art and AP Latin. DCPS students outperformed the national distribution on those.

I can say at Wilson there some of the teachers don't truly prepare students for the AP tests. You see this explicitly with the Environmental Science score. Even though I know those stats are DCPS-wide I'm guessing that Wilson was one of just a few schools to offer AP Environmental Science, I don't know how much AP scores count in assessing teachers but I can easily say teacher quality is a part of this equation.

I also find it odd that folks are harping on the 25% students at SWW that didn't get a passing score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm highly disappointed in Wilson's AP passing rate. I'm curios why DCPS didn't break down the pass rates by FARMS, Race, ESOL, and other demographics.

Supposedly the honors-for-all at Wilson will magically turn those 1s and 2s into 4s and 5s. Just as I'm sure they are all "passing" 9th grade honors English and biology.

My mother taught AP English (elsewhere) for 20+ years and was a reader for those tests every June in Austin. Other teachers at her school (also my alma mater) served as readers as well in other subjects. They got great experience in seeing how other students approached the exam and learning fellow AP English teachers each year during that period. Do any DCPS teachers serve as readers? Selection back then had been based on the teacher's own student performance. The biology and chemistry teachers at my school had a decades-long streak of never having had a student score below a 4.

And for public school kids (or any student) getting a 4 or 5 can save tuition dollars. Some universities give a full year of college credit (6 credits) for a 5, or a semester credit for a 4. At Georgetown, I didn't earn credit, but I was able to place out of required 100-level courses and take much more interesting upper-level electives instead.

DC is doing a disservice by failing to prepare students properly for these exams.

If there is pressure to have everyone at a comprehensive high school pass, what will happen is that fewer students will be allowed to take APs.

However, IMO the magnet schools should be held to a higher standard.

What's wrong with that?! If the class is not geared towards the exam, then it shouldn't be called an AP class. Make it an "intensive" class or whatever. Not everyone should be in AP classes.