Federal

More Low-Income Students Taking AP Classes

But Participation Among Black Students Still Lags, Report Finds
By Catherine Gewertz — February 04, 2009 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Includes updates and/or revisions.

More students from low-income families are taking and passing Advanced Placement tests, but non-Asian minority students—particularly African-Americans—are still underrepresented, according to a report on the tests of college-level material released last week.

The fifth annual report on AP scores was released Feb. 4 by the College Board, the New York City-based nonprofit organization that sponsors the program. In the graduating class of 2008, it shows, 17 percent of the students who took the exams were from low-income families, up from 16.2 percent in the class of 2007 and 11.6 percent in the class of 2003.

“Major initiatives are needed to ensure adequate preparation of students in middle school [and] 9th and 10th grades so that all students will have an equitable chance at success when they go on to take AP courses and exams later in high school,” the report said.

Twenty-five percent of the members of the class of 2008 took an ap exam some time during high school, the report says, compared with 19 percent in the class of 2003. The proportion passing AP tests was 15.2 percent, up from 14.4 percent in 2007.

The graduating class of 2008 had 61,191 more AP test-takers than did the previous graduating class, a development many educators laud because it suggests wider access to challenging coursework and more substantial preparation for college.

In the previous four years, as the number of test-takers rose, the proportion of tests earning a passing grade slid from about 60 percent to 57 percent. But for the class of 2008, it stayed at 57 percent, even as more students took the exams, the data show.

Making Gains

Low-income students made up 13.4 percent of those receiving a passing score—a 3 or higher on a 5-point scale—compared with 13.1 percent the previous year and 9.8 percent in the class of 2003, the College Board figures show.

Minority participation in the program showed gains among Latino students and, to a lesser extent, black students. In the class of 2007, 14 percent of the test-takers were Hispanic. By 2008, 14.8 percent were Hispanic, which is close to proportionate since that group makes up 15.4 percent of the general student population.

Black students were 7.8 percent of the number of test-takers in 2008, compared with 7.4 percent in 2007. They are far more underrepresented on the exams, however, the report says, since blacks account for 14.4 percent of students.

The proportions of white, Asian, and Native American students taking AP exams were almost unchanged.

Students of Asian heritage had the highest mean score, 3.09, on the tests in all 37 subjects combined. The national mean was 2.83. White students turned in a mean score of 2.97; African-American students, 1.91; and Native Americans, 2.40. Latino students were divided into three subgroups: Mexican or Mexican-American (2.37), Puerto Rican (2.39), and other Hispanic (2.45).

In a conference call with reporters, Trevor Packer, the College Board vice president who oversees the AP program, said the gaps show that some minority students are “not always receiving adequate preparation for the rigors of college-level coursework.”

States with large Hispanic populations—such as California, Florida, and Texas—are starting to see more AP participation by Hispanic students because those states have been focusing on encouraging them to take the courses and tests for several years, he said, while states with large African-American populations have begun that work more recently.

More Teachers Trained

Mr. Packer attributed the increased rates of participation by low-income students in part to the training of more teachers to teach AP courses, through programs such as the College Board’s summer training scholarships. States and districts are also using federal grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s AP Incentive Program to build the low-income AP population by expanding teacher training and offering more skill building for students.

David Wakelyn, who oversees the National Governors Association’s initiative to expand access to the ap program in six states, said some states, such as Louisiana, Missouri, and North Dakota, need to build opportunity to take AP classes.

The good news, he said, is that “the answers are there” in states such as Maryland, which had the largest share of students in the class of 2008 passing AP tests (23.4 percent), and Maine and Vermont, which produced the strongest one-year and five-year gains, respectively, in their percentages of students passing the exams.

A link to “AP Report to the Nation” is supplied at edweek.org/links.
A version of this article appeared in the February 11, 2009 edition of Education Week as More Low-Income Pupils Taking AP Classes, Board Says

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Assessment Webinar
Rethinking STEM Assessment: Strategies for Administrators
School and district leaders will explore strategies to enhance STEM assessment practices across their district, within schools and classrooms.
Content provided by Project Lead The Way
Federal Webinar Keeping Up with the Trump Administration's Latest K-12 Moves: Subscriber-Exclusive Quick Hit
EdWeek subscribers, join this 30-minute webinar to find out what the latest federal policy changes mean for K-12 education.
Artificial Intelligence Live Online Discussion A Seat at the Table: Math & Technology: Finding the Recipe for Student Success
How should we balance AI & math instruction? Join our discussion on preparing future-ready students.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Federal Trump Admin. Was Moving Ed. Dept. Programs Elsewhere Before a Court Intervened
The department had penned agreements with the U.S. departments of Labor and the Treasury to move programs, but was halted by court order.
8 min read
A Morehouse College student lines up before the school commencement, May 19, 2024, in Atlanta. The Education Department announced on July 18, 2024, that it is cancelling an additional $1.2 billion in student loans for borrowers who work in public service.
A Morehouse College student lines up before the school commencement on May 19, 2024, in Atlanta. The U.S. Department of Education had started to work with the U.S. Department of the Treasury on transferring its student loan portfolio, a new court filing shows.
Seth Wenig/AP
Federal Trump Admin. Adds Project 2025 Author to Education Department Staff
The appointment comes as Trump has already begun to embrace plans outlined in the controversial 900-page conservative policy agenda.
4 min read
A copy of Project 2025 is held during the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago.
A copy of Project 2025 is held during the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. The Trump administration has added the author of the conservative policy document's chapter on education to the U.S. Department of Education's staff.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Federal Trump Admin. Pauses Ed. Dept. Layoffs After Judge's Order
The U.S. Department of Education is slowly complying with a federal court order to reinstate staff.
3 min read
Phil Rosenfelt, center, an attorney with the Office of the General Counsel at the Department of Education, is greeted by supporters after retrieving personal belongings from the Education Department building in Washington on March 24, 2025.
Phil Rosenfelt, center, an attorney with the office of general counsel at the U.S. Department of Education, is greeted by supporters after retrieving personal belongings from the Education Department building in Washington on March 24, 2025, the last day of work for hundreds of agency employees. The Trump administration has had to bump back the day it planned to stop paying laid-off staff.
Jose Luis Magana/AP
Federal Tutoring, After-School, and Other Student Services at Risk as Trump Cuts AmeriCorps
Deep cuts to programs across the federal government have left students without programming they'd come to count on.
8 min read
Members of the City Year program work at Isaac Newton Middle School for Math and Science in East Harlem during the MLK Day of Service on Jan. 20, 2025, in New York City.
Members of the City Year program work at Isaac Newton Middle School for Math and Science in East Harlem during the MLK Day of Service on Jan. 20, 2025, in New York City. City Year places AmeriCorps volunteers in underserved schools, but cuts to the federal service agency have led City Year to scale back some of its AmeriCorps volunteer-powered programs.
Courtesy of City Year New York