Request For AP Test Scores Will Be Honored

Charles County public school officials said Monday that they plan to comply with a public information request filed by a Board of Education member seeking Advanced Placement test scores for each high school.

School system spokeswoman Katie O'Malley-Simpson said administrators are preparing a report with each school's scores to provide to Jennifer S. Abell (La Plata), a school board member who had cited state public information laws in an Oct. 30 letter requesting the data. Abell had initially asked for the statistics at an Oct. 9 Board of Education meeting, but the board voted, 4 to 3, not to release the information. AP test scores for the county at large were made public at that meeting.

"The board itself voted not to have the information compiled at the school-by-school level," O'Malley-Simpson said. "However, part of the information is public information, so it will be provided to those who request it."

Abell said releasing test scores on a school-by-school basis provides Board of Education members with the information they need to manage resources effectively. For the past several years, individual schools' AP test scores have been released to the Board of Education in closed session; in contrast, High School Assessment and Maryland State Assessment scores are made public each year.

"We're supposed to be making data-driven decisions -- that message is pushed down our throats at every conference we attend," Abell said. "But it's hard to do that when you can't get the data."

Policies on releasing test scores vary across neighboring counties. In Montgomery County, which has one of the nation's highest rates of AP participation, public reports break down scores by school, race and other demographic information. In Calvert County, where state-mandated assessment test scores are among the best in Maryland, school-by-school AP test results are released to the Board of Education in closed session but are not made public.

Advanced Placement exams, which are administered each spring in 34 subjects as varied as physics, Chinese and studio art, are designed to test students' mastery of courses in which they receive college-level instruction. Students receive a score ranging from a low of 1 to a high of 5; good scores can earn college credits.

Educators and parents in school districts across the country have grappled with the question of which students should be allowed to take AP classes and whether the experience helps them even if they do not pass the end-of-year exam. At Charles County's six high schools, some AP courses are open to anyone who is interested, while others have prerequisites.

Roberta S. "Bobbie" Wise, vice chairman of the Charles County Board of Education, said she voted against public release of the AP test scores because she was worried that school officials and parents might push for students who do not score well on the exams to be excluded from the courses.

Board of Education Chairman Donald M. Wade (Hughesville) and members Collins A. Bailey (Hughesville) and Charles E. Carrington (Pomfret) joined Wise in voting against releasing school-by-school scores. Voting with Abell were Pamela A. Pedersen (St. Charles) and Maura H. Cook (Newburg).

Wise said that publicizing school-by-school scores on AP tests is more problematic than releasing state-mandated assessment scores because far fewer students take the AP exams, prompting fears that individuals could be identified. State law prevents school districts from releasing scores if too few students take the exams.

O'Malley-Simpson said that some scores will be redacted when the school district provides the data to Abell so students cannot be identified. While 448 Charles County students took the AP English Language and Composition exam, just 12 took the French Language test.

"The issue comes with a physics class or a computer science class, for example, where you have just a handful of results," O'Malley-Simpson said. "Part of the reason we don't generate the school-by-school report in the first place is because so much of it has to be redacted."