ADVANCED PLACEMENT EXAMS

ACROSS THE STATE OF IDAHO (part 2)

The Idaho Department of Education and the College Board were gracious enough to provide district and school data for the 2015 Advanced Placement testing program. No student information was provided, and data were redacted for districts and schools with 10 or fewer participants in the AP testing program prior to providing the information.

Here are statewide data in terms of exams given (click the slide to enlarge):

Of the 9980 Advanced Placement exams given in Idaho in 2015, 3668 were given in the Boise School District. That’s about as many as the next five Districts (West Ada, CDA, Vallivue, Pocatello, and Bonneville) combined.

In fact, Boise District AP students took 37% of the statewide exams in 2015. though the Boise District's enrollment is about 8.5% of statewide enrollment. 

Of course, Districts in Idaho vary greatly in size. When student participation numbers are divided by the number of juniors and seniors in the District, the top 4 Districts are McCall (64%), Boise (50%), Blaine Cty (45%), and Vallivue (42%), all at over 40%. McCall had 131 juniors and seniors in 2015, and 84 students took at least 1 exam. Boise had 3552 juniors and seniors, and 1791 took at least 1 exam.

A few districts in Idaho have more than one high school. When we look at the same data by high school, 6 schools were above 40% - Boise High (65%) and McCall (64%) lead the pack, followed by Timberline at 55%, Borah (48%), Wood River in Blaine County (45%), and Century of Pocatello (44%). Vallivue of Caldwell was at 39% participation, and Capital at 33%.

Only 3 of the high schools above 30% AP participation have free/reduced lunch percentages above the statewide average - Borah, which also has the largest statewide population of Limited English students, Vallivue, and Capital.

Here are the percentages of juniors and seniors passing (“3”) at least one exam (more than 95 students taking 1 exam or more), by high school. 99 students took exams at Highland, and 106 at CDA Charter, while 402 took exams at Timberline and 623 at Boise.

ADVANCED PLACEMENT EXAMS

ACROSS THE STATE OF IDAHO (part 1)

From our perspective, Advanced Placement is the "gold standard" of Advanced Opportunities in the state of Idaho. We say this for several reasons:

• Since AP features a common rigorous exam system for each of its courses, students who take AP exams can rest assured that students across the country have faced the same challenge in the exam system as have they.
• Training opportunities for Advanced Placement courses provide for conversation and interaction among teachers of the same courses across the country, and allow for extensive learning opportunities for teachers from practitioners approved by the College Board.
• Students can learn how the colleges in which they have interest, whether in Idaho or outside of the state, will treat the scores they earn on AP tests in providing college credit or waivers from college courses.

Students and parents can research credit policies for universities and colleges at this site. For example, here is the credit policy with a few example from the University of Utah:

Here's the University of Idaho's policy, with a few samples:

And here is the credit policy of the College of Idaho, again with a few examples of courses and credit:

So how did Idaho District s and high schools fare on this year's Advanced Placement testing? That's the subject of our next post.

Advanced Placement Data for the

Boise District Class of 2015

Finally!  The College Board has published a database of AP information for the past three years, allowing us to track test-taking patterns beginning with the class of 2015. We have completed the analysis for this group, and have found some intriguing data.

Test-Taking Patterns by Gender

Here's the overall AP test-taking pattern by gender.

55% of the test-takers (447 students) were female, while 378 (46%) were male. That's the overall pattern. However, we wanted to see if the pattern of more males taking Science exams and more females taking Language Arts exams had changed. It has not. For example, of the 163 AP Physics exams taken by this class, 64% (104) were taken by males, and 59 (36%) were taken by females. In English Language (the junior level AP English offering), 59% (294) of the exams were taken by females, and 41% (203)  by males.

Test-taking Patterns by  Ethnicity

The percentage of test-takers by ethnicity is remarkable similar to the overall ethnic breakdown in the District's high schools. 80% of exams were taken by White students; the overall high school percentage is 79%. 7% were taken by Asian students; about 5.5% of the high school population is Asian. About 8% of the test-takers were Hispanic/Latino; 10% of the overall population is Hispanic/Latino. 2% of the test-takers were Black; the overall Black population is about 4%.

Test-taking by School

Half of the population in the 4 Boise traditional high schools took one or more Advanced Placement exams. Boise High School led the way with 59% of the class taking at least one exam, with Timberline at 56%. In 2015, all students who took and AP class also took the associated exam, so almost half of Borah's class of 2015 students took an exam during their years as a Lion.

One of the reasons that Boise High gives many more exams than any school in the state is the number of students that take numerous exams. In the class of 2015, 28% (128) of Boise's students took 5 or more AP exams. In fact, a number of Boise High students took more than 15 exams during their years as Braves. Since most colleges around the country accept Advanced Placement test results and give credit or waive classes (as opposed to Dual Credit, which may or nor be accepted outside the state of Idaho), these students will likely start out as at least second semester sophomores at the college or university they attend.

Ar Timberline, almost one in 5 class of 2015 students took 5 or more Advanced Placement exams. In the District as a whole, the percentage was just over 16. 

BOISE'S LIMITED ENGLISH POPULATION

WORLD CULTURES IN OUR COMMUNITY

The arrival of Limited English students in the Boise District in the past 30 years has a brought incredible cultural diversity to our schools and the community.  Students from around the world have contributed much to the academic, social, and extra-curricular environments of our schools.

Last week, ELL Consulting teacher Molly de Fuentealba put together some maps which provide a picture of the countries from which our Limited English students hail. Limited English students are those who have not yet demonstrated mastery of the written and spoken English language. This link will take you to the LEP map. If you click on the country label, the number of students speaking different native languages will appear.

Of the 1,756 current LEP students, 123 are from Iraq, 98 from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 75 from Mexico, 64 from Thailand, 59 from Kenya, 44 from Nepal, and 41 from Tanzania.

Here's a screen shot showing numbers of LEP students from Africa:

Of the 328 Boise District LEP students from Africa, 292 hail from 7 countries; Somalia, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The most prominent native languages of these students are Somali, Swahili, and Kinyarwanda, though the total number of native languages among these students is 13.

Here's the portion of the map portraying the LEP numbers from Southeast Asia:

Of these 184 students, 162 have come from 4 countries; Nepal, India, Thailand, and Myanmar (formerly Burma). The 2 most prevalent native languages among these students are Nepali and Karen, but there are 18 total native languages among these students.

Recently, many students have come from the Middle East to Boise, most frequently from Iraq. As you can see in the screen shot, 123 of the 194 middle eastern students are from Iraq. The most prevalent native language of these students, is, as you would expect, Arabic.

Over half of our LEP students (829) were born in the United States. 

These LEP students' native languages total 42, with Spanish being the native language for 625 of the students. 

In total, our Limited English students come from 61 countries around the world, and their native languages total 74.  Additionally, 379 District students are classified as LEPx 1 or 2, meaning they are former LEP students who have been exited for 1 or 2 years, and 964 are FLEP, former LEP students who are fluent English speakers who've been out of the LEP program for more than 2 years.

DIRECT ADMISSION AND THE SBAC 
GRADUATION REQUIREMENT

The Idaho State Board of Education recently passed a "Direct Admission" standard which provides incentive-based criteria for automatic admission to Idaho's higher-ed institutions for Idaho students. The Direct Admission policy is a step in the right direction in achieving the Board's goal that 60% of Idaho's high school graduates garner a 2 or 4 year degree or a certificate from an institution of higher education.

The Direct Admission policy also provides another reason for the Board to drop its requirement that students pass the SBAC or an alternate indicator of college readiness in order to graduate from high school. The Boise School Board recently submitted a resolution for the ISBA Conference in November that addresses this issue, along with talking points.

State Superintendent Sherri Ybarra, speaking in an Idaho Statesman article last week, indicated that  "this year’s sophomores should not have to take a high-stakes graduation test. She supports multiple measures of student ability, instead of wrapping measurement into a single test that is new to the state through Common Core." (article written by Bill Roberts, Statesman reporter).

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/09/29/4011545/ybarra-will-seek-to-stop-required.html#storylink=cpy

Direct Admission

The State Board's Direct Admission policy, approved in August,  includes these criteria (page 19 of this document)::

• "All students with a GPA of 3.0 or higher will be conditionally admitted to any of the state’s eight (8) public higher education institutions, regardless of the SAT score. 
• For students with a GPA below 3.0, admission will be based on a multiple of their GPA and SAT score. Students with a multiple totaling 2835 or greater will be admitted to the state’s eight (8) public higher education institutions.
•  An example is as follows: 

 GPA              SAT             Multiple 
 2.0                 1418            2835 
 2.7                 1050            2835 
 2.9                   990            2835

Students with a multiple below 2835 will be conditionally admitted to Idaho State University College of Technology and Lewis-Clark State College as part of their community college function, as well as Eastern Idaho Technical College and the three (3) community colleges."

The Direct Admission program has already been initiated, and students across the state who meet the criteria will receive letters of conditional admittance this fall for college entrance in 2016-17. The condition for full admittance is graduation from high school.

Direct Admission will forego the in-state public college admission process for over a third of Idaho's college-bound seniors. Though we'd like to see an increase in available scholarships for students who meet the criteria, we see Direct Admissions as a positive step toward achieving the Board's 60% goal.

SBAC Graduation Requirement

Unfortunately, under another current rule, a number of Idaho students, beginning with the class of 2018, will be eligible for Direct Admission, but will be taking remedial classes because they have not met the passing cut scores on the Math and Reading SBAC assessment and the Biology/Chemistry EOC.

Add that the other issues associated with the test-based graduation requirement, such as...

• The SBAC is a "college readiness" test, not a basic skills test like the "old" ISAT was.
• At least 70% of students who took the SBAC in 2014-15 would have fallen short of the cut scores required to meet the requirement, compared to 10-15% on the "old" ISAT.
• In Boise, 35 sophomores who had passed an AP test failed to meet the cut score to pass the SBAC.
• Of the 244 Boise sophomores who passed a Professional-Technical course in 2014-15, fewer than 20% met the cut score requirement of the graduation requirement.
• Of the 82 students who passed the Heavy Duty Diesel course, 10 met the SBAC graduation criteria.
• Of the 24 enrolled in Welding, 4 met the criteria

...and you have, in our opinion, a convincing rationale for dropping passage of the SBAC as a high school graduation requirement.

Some have said that, since students can meet the requirement by taking and passing a remedial course offered by the district, the test-based graduation requirement is not a big deal. Actually, it is, for these reasons:

• Sophomores who fail to meet the SBAC cut scores this spring will be required to take the test again as juniors, despite the fact that many will have taken and passed AP, Dual Credit, and Professional-Technical classes in the meantime, thus garnering college credit or work-related experience while they are at risk for high school graduation.
• In their senior year, those who fail the SBAC for a second time will take a "college readiness" class offered by the district, thereby jeopardizing their ability to take AP, Dual Credit, or Professional-Technical classes which will enhance their college and career readiness.

Direct Admission represents the "carrot" approach to motivating students to attend college, and it makes sense to us because of the reduced paperwork in and simplicity of the plan. The test-based high school graduation requirement? It's the "stick" approach, and it will send mixed messages to students across the state. Let's get rid of it.

THIS AND THAT FOR SEPTEMBER

Here are a few interesting and noteworthy posts from around the web in the past month.

CITY CLUB OF BOISE PRESCHOOL DISCUSSION AUDIO AVAILABLE

Boise's City Club hosted a conversation about preschool on August 26 at the Grove Hotel. Discussion participants were Beth Oppenheimer, Executive Director of the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children, and Representative Christy Perry, R-Nampa, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. 

Discussion was lively and informative, and audience members asked many interesting questions. Here is a link to the audio of the discussion.

STUDENT COLLEGE DEBT AND DEFAULT RATES

From The Upshot, a research feature of the New York Times, Dr. Susan Dynarski has written another interesting article about student debt.  Using information from and analysis of student debt published in Brookings, Dynarski writes that of the increase in defaults on students debt, 75% can be attributed to students at for profit and community colleges.

She notes that "Borrowers at for-profit and community colleges, by contrast, earn low salaries — a median of about $22,000 for those exiting school in 2010 — and have had difficulty paying their loans."

Here's a chart from the article detailing loan defaults among students attending different types of colleges.

In explaining the cohort increases, Dynarski indicates that "during the recession, millions of students poured out of a weak labor market and into college to improve their skills. Historically, these students would have gone to community colleges. But with state tax revenues taking a nose-dive, community colleges were starved for funds and unable to expand capacity to absorb all of the new students. Students took their Pell Grants and loans to for-profit colleges. Enrollments at these schools spiked, and so did borrowing."

HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL INC.

Again from the New York Times comes the story of Florida's  IMG Academy and its foray into high school football. IMG is the preparatory academy founded in the late 70's which, at the time, was primarily a training ground for future tennis stars.

However, for the past several years, IMG has fielded a football team composed of players recruited from around the country. The players take a full array of academic courses and are often recruited by top colleges. Recently, IMG trounced Florida public school powerhouse Cocoa High School  49-7.

IMG's tuition can be as high as $71,000, though it does have need-based aid for students. Interestingly, the Florida legislature provides support for the school to the tune of $7 million, even though IMG is private.

SEATTLE SETTLEMENT AND SALARIES

Seattle teachers reached a tentative negotiations agreement with the Board of Trustees late last week, after staging a walkout just as as school was to start for the fall semester. Teachers will vote on the proposed contact on Sunday, September 20.

Though its important to understand that the cost of living in Seattle is about 45% higher than that of Boise (Bellevue is +67%) , it is interesting to see the range of salaries in the Seattle area (from the Seattle Community Schools Forum blog).

JUDGING FROM AFAR

There are a number of school ranking systems out there these days. Each has criteria upon which its rankings are based. Most school rating systems examine a small slice of a school's characteristics, namely standardized test scores. For example, Great Schools uses standardized test scores as their primary rating tool, as does Schooldigger, which also includes information about a school's free/reduced lunch percentage.

Two of the nation's most prominent school ranking systems focus on high schools, those of Newsweek magazine and U.S. News and World Reports. These two ranking systems use fairly complex systems which consider standardized test scores and a few other variables, including how well the schools serves its underprivileged population. A third, the Washington Post's "Most Challenging High Schools" list, relies on a much simpler formula for its rankings.

U.S. News High School Rankings

Kevin Welner, the Director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado-Boulder, wrote a critique of the U.S. News high school rankings which was published in the Answer Sheet, Valerie Strauss' blog for the Washington Post newspaper. The critique, which spanned two posts, can be found here (Part 1) and here (Part 2). In Part 1, Welner looks primarily at the methodology of the U.S. News rankings, and in Part 2 he examines the characteristics of some of the top-ranked schools.

From Welner's critique:

"There is an important lesson here about rankings in general—not just the U.S. News rankings. A disproportionate focus on outcomes will always reward those schools that excel at enrolling high-achievers. Perhaps this is more obvious when we look outside the school realm. For instance, University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari is such a fantastic recruiter that when looking at his success it’s almost impossible to disentangle his recruiting and coaching talents."

and:

"This year, the nation’s top-ranked high schools are: (1) Dallas’ “School for the Talented and Gifted,” a magnet school; and (2) BASIS Scottsdale (AZ), a charter school. The Dallas school has an application process that begins with a GPA screen and a test score screen, then the applicant student must “design and carry out a school-related or other project that demonstrates extended effort and creativity,” and then the applicant student must attend an “application session.” At this session, the applicant student must complete a timed (1 ½ hours) hand-written, prompted essay; must complete a “30-minute timed logic and reasoning activity;” and finally is given a 15-minute scored interview. This highly competitive process yields an entering class of 65 students.

The Scottsdale charter school is not selective in the same way; admission is by lottery. But the selectivity is arguably just as potent as with the Dallas school. Parents are warned in no uncertain terms that only the most gifted and committed students will survive. Just a handful of students are admitted after the early grades (e.g., a parent was told that there would be a total of four slots open for entering eighth graders). Moreover, as described by the mother of a student in another BASIS charter, the warnings appear to understate the extremity of the BASIS approach."

U.S. News responded with a written statement about Welner's critique, which read in part:

"Mr. Welner’s overall argument is incorrect. Schools that do better and are awarded medals in the U.S. News rankings are the ones that are doing more (better than the average in the state or way better than the average in the state) than what is expected given their level of poverty or proportion of economic disadvantaged."

Newsweek Rankings

Newsweek ranks the top 500 high schools in the country, based on its own analysis. Westat, a Maryland research company, provided an accompanying document to the rankings, entitled "Identification of Newsweek's 2015 Public High School Rankings", which explained the methodology of the rankings. In the Section called "Limitations", the authors make the following remarks:

"There are limitations associated with conducting this analysis, many of which stem from the availability of data and their suitability for comparing schools in different states. We have no information about a range of school factors that may influence school performance, such as fiscal resources, teacher quality and effectiveness, school leadership, and school climate. These school factors could potentially contribute to student achievement and college readiness, but data are unavailable for a variety of reasons.

Additionally, the rankings are still dependent on self-reported data, which has implications for our sample and data collection standards. There are circumstances in which the variables may not have been reported consistently, and for 2015, this issue may be particularly problematic for the new dual enrollment items."

and this:

"We did not control for any other factor besides student socioeconomic status. Many of the top schools on the relative list are magnet and charter schools and may have an application process that allows them to select high achieving students. These types of schools would have an advantage in our ranking methodology over schools that do not have an application process."

So, Newsweek's rankings suffer from some of the flaws noted by Mr. Welner on the U.S. News rankings. Further, some of the magnet and charter schools he referenced are among the highest ranked schools on both lists.

Washington Post Most Challenging Schools Index

The Newsweek rankings were formerly the "Most Challenging High School Rankings" until the Washington Post Company sold Newsweek in 2010. Since then, Post education columnist Jay Mathews has continued with his rankings, using two simple factors for the evaluation of "Challenging High Schools" : If the number of Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate Exams given in a particular year at the school divided by the number of school's graduating seniors that year is greater than 1.0, the school makes the list.

To be sure, the Post rankings suffer from some of the same shortcomings as the other ranking systems. The top-ranked schools are typically magnets or charter high schools. And, on the Post rankings, the number of exams and graduates are self-reported.

In Idaho last year, 10 high schools applied for and made the Washington Post list. Here they are, with their ratio (AP or IB/Grads) and free/reduced lunch percentages:

Especially impressive on the Post list are the achievements of Borah, Capital, Century, and Vallivue, which have successfully emphasized rigorous coursework and achievement with high numbers of disadvantaged students.

On balance, we prefer the Washington Post list to the others, since it is simple and understandable. It was a District goal in the early 2000's to have all 4 comprehensive high schools on the Post list, simply to prove to ourselves that we could do it. Now that all four have made the list for 6 straight years, our challenge is to expand opportunities for all students to access rigorous coursework and preparatory opportunities.

Clearly, it's extremely difficult to put together a ranking system that reflects all of the characteristics of a successful school.Witness the difficulty Idaho has had with the establishment of the "Five Star System", which relied only on achievement and produced school  rankings which were unstable and unreliable.


The combined value of school culture, achievement and depth of offerings such as music, art and athletics may be harder to quantify, but is perhaps more important to student success than any annual school ranking list can adequately portray.