Maryland
Most suburban school systems in Maryland expanded their college-level test participation last year, according to The Washington Post’s annual Challenge Index ratings.
The High School Challenge
Carroll County was the only Maryland locality on the list that did not set its best-ever score on the Challenge Index in 2010.
Prince George’s County scored a rating of 1.193, one of the highest in the country. But its high participation rate was accompanied by low average passing rates on the Advanced Placement tests. That was the result of a policy pioneered by several Prince George’s schools, along with some in the District, Texas, Florida, California and Indiana, to require most students to take Advanced Placement courses and tests.
Educators at these schools have concluded that although few of their students are likely to achieve passing scores on the three-hour college-level AP exams, many would benefit from tasks that acquaint them with college standards, even if they do not score high enough to earn college credit. Once students are involved in AP, those educators say, teachers can help them catch up to the AP standard through improved instruction and more challenging programs in lower grades.
Three Prince George’s high schools — Crossland, Surrattsville and Friendly — had participation rates on AP tests high enough to qualify for The Post’s main national list. But they were placed instead on the Catching Up list because few of their AP tests had passing marks. The passing rates were 3 percent at Crossland and Surrattsville and 5 percent at Friendly.
Other Prince George’s schools did better. The county’s highest AP passing rate, 62 percent, was at Eleanor Roosevelt, which selectively admits some of its students. Second was Bowie High with a passing rate of 43 percent. Third was Northwestern High, 37 percent. Overall Prince George’s had an average passing rate on AP and International Baccalaureate tests of 26 percent.
Among Washington area school systems, those in suburban Maryland had three of the top 10 rankings in the Challenge Index: Montgomery County was in fourth place; Anne Arundel County in seventh; and Calvert County in ninth. On a ranked list of schools in the area, Montgomery had five of the top 10 places: Bethesda-Chevy Chase was second; Richard Montgomery third; Poolesville fourth; Walter Johnson ninth; and Churchill 10th.
The District
In recent years, D.C. public charter schools had higher college-level test participation rates than regular schools, ranking higher on the Challenge Index. But the new list shows charter schools have fallen behind the school system.
A major reason: Friendship Collegiate Academy, the highest-ranking D.C. charter school on the index, had a large drop in AP testing. It gave 287 AP tests in 2010, down from 532 in 2009. Its index score declined to 1.970 from 2.661.
Arsallah Shairzay, who runs the AP program at Friendship, said the school gave many more tests from 2007 to 2009 because it had extra money for AP from a grant. The number has since dropped, he said, but “we just administered about 300 AP exams this month, which is a more sustainable number; and still it is an increase of nearly 300 percent compared to the 99 AP exams that we had in 2006.”
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