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The fine print

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Yesterday, Gov. Blagojevich’s office issued a press release entitled “Gov. Blagojevich announces more high school students succeeding on college-level AP Exams.”

Governor Rod R. Blagojevich today announced that more Illinois high school students than ever are succeeding on college-level Advanced Placement ProgramÂ® (AP) Exams […]

â€œWeâ€™ve worked hard to give Illinois students the chance to take advanced courses that give them a jump start on a successful future,â€ said Gov. Blagojevich. […]

â€œItâ€™s good to see a growing number of students challenging themselves and gaining academic achievement through this program,â€ said Christopher Koch, Interim State Superintendent.

But, as usual when you receive one of these releases it’s critical that you read the fine print. Here’s the Tribune story, entitled “As AP classes grow, test failure rate rises - Classes facing audit to ensure they’re rigorous.”

A record number of Illinois students enrolled in rigorous Advanced Placement classes last school year, but the proportion of teens who passed the end-of-year exam continued its steady decline, according to data released Tuesday.

Last year, Illinois public high school students passed about 70 percent of the 76,683 exams they took in subjects such as calculus, French literature and computer science. Six years ago, the pass rate was 72 percent. […]

College officials have complained that the growth in AP courses has resulted in a watered-down curriculum in some districts. In response, the College Board launched an audit of all AP classes this year to ensure they are rigorous.

The phrase “failure rates” and the word “audit” are not mentioned a single time in the governor’s press release.

The perpetual campaign continues.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 9:18 am

Comments

Well, it’s three months after the election and our Blago is back to his usual routines…puffery
and downright dishonesty about small, showy government initiatives while ignoring the elephants in the room…federal investigations,
serious budget problems, an underperforming and patronage-ridden civil service, 10 million uninsured plus adults, a Democratic legislative majority that is breaking up into factions, among others, all problems that his less than impressive aides Sheila and Louanner are clueless about fixing.

Expect a lot more of these announcements.

Comment by Cassandra Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 9:27 am
Absolutely, fear Blago, but there are a few good nuggets buried in this Tribune story. One, while the pass rate has gone down for poor and for African-American students, the number of Latinos passing these AP tests (even if a lot of them are Spanish language) looks like it has increased dramatically from 2001-2006. Second, according to the Tribune, even students who take and fail these exams seem to do better in the long run than students who don’t. So if Blago could have settled for simply stating, more students than ever in Illinois are _taking_ Advanced Placement classes and exams, that might be a decent claim. Not that Blago probably had anything to do with that, either.

Comment by ZC Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 9:31 am
Is this a metric from No Child left behind? Does it include private vs public schools?

Comment by Bill Baar Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 9:39 am
The very idea that the governor has anything to do with school test results is a farce. The whole idea that is behind his bloviating is a farce.

It is time to stop thinking that test results show a gubernatorial impact in some way.

Or, am I wrong? When you took your tests, did you do well because Thompson, or Edgar looked over your shoulder?

Doofus!

Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 9:40 am
If the governor gets crucified when the schools are doing poorly and it is not his fault, he should be able to take credit when they are doing well and it is not because of him.

Comment by Leroy Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 9:43 am
They’ll tout anything to meet their Press-Release- A-Day quota. Never mind reading the story, just find the spinnability factor and run with it!

Comment by If It Walks Like a Duck... Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 9:57 am
Wow, so the dumbing down continues.

Comment by Wumpus Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 10:10 am
AP classes are college classes generally only different in that they take one semester and do them over two semesters in many cases (not all).

The point being, expecting all students to be able to pass the test is a gross misunderstanding of what the test is. It is a test to demonstrate whether a student can get credit or bypass an introductory class. Dumbing down isn’t what happens when there is a low pass rate. The low pass rate is indicative of students taking the class who should not.

Part of NCLB encourages states to institute more AP type classes in poor high schools when most of those schools should probably be concentrating on basic instruction.

Comment by Archpundit Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 10:42 am
Reading comprehension is the basis of all areas of education. As we all know, the failure to give this subject the utmost importance at the elementary school level causes the most difficulties during future studies. I would perhaps construe that reading was not the governor’s forte.

Comment by i d Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 11:02 am
Legal reading skills have increased dramatically under blagojevich. Experts suggest it’s because all the plea agreements and indictments in the public domain.

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 11:36 am
Gov. Blagojevich - woke up today only hitting the snooze button twice,

Gov. Blagojevich - made his hair perfect,

Gov. Blagojevich - tied his shoes all by himself,

Gov. Blagojevich - takes credit for the snow fall stopping,

Gov. Blagojevich - takes credit for the sun coming up as part of his Opportunity Returns All-Everything program,

Gov. Blagojevich - takes credit for all that is good in the world, but omits anything negative,

Gov. Blagojevich - hoses state workers again, but denies it,

Gov. Blagojevich - said today, “What legal bills?”

Cassandra - registered her unfounded daily whine about hard working, front line state employees.

Nope. Nothing new in Illinois.

Comment by Papa Legba Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 11:43 am
There is a question of standards in these AP courses. According to the President’s Advisory Commission on Science and Technology, in 2004, 2h3n compared with AP courses around the world the Physics/Science AP courses ranked in the 0 percentile; Math AP Courses ranked in the 6th percentile.

Thatâ€™s in comparison to both the nations of Western Europe and Japan and the emerging countries of China, India and South Korea.

See: http://www.ostp.gov/PCAST/FINALPCASTSECAPABILITIESPACKAGE.pdf

Comment by Truthful James Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 1:28 pm
Leroy- I think the point isn’t whether the governor is taking credit, but in fact that kids are doing worse, not better on the AP scores when you look at the number of kids taking the test.

Comment by leigh Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 1:59 pm
You’re a riot, Papa Legba…

Comment by Just Wonderin' Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 2:01 pm
I think you, too, can do the math and see that as the number of tests taken went up, the number of people passing the tests also went up. Even if the pass rate went down, there are more people passing the test now than there were 6 years ago.

There are also more people taking the test who don’t do as well.

Considering that students at elite high schools used to be the only ones who could take advantage of AP classes, I say that the central benefit of all this is that more students overall are getting that opportunity to take an advanced class. Not just those at the elite schools.

Comment by sam Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 4:48 pm
You have to give Blago credit. He is definitely the go-to numbers guy.

Comment by Little Egypt Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 5:11 pm
Right on, Papa Legba!!!!!!!

Comment by Disgusted Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 6:34 pm
Papa Legba - tooooooooooooo funny

Comment by anon A Wednesday, Feb 7, 07 @ 8:11 pm