Open Letter to Andy Griffiths and The School Board
Andy:
GOOD NEWS:
This year, the College Board provided the “numeric scores” in mid-July, not September, for all 17 AP classes offered in the School District. That change in dates should be of great help to the School Board next year in determining whether or not to extend the NMSI contract in August. There will be no need to use “leading indicators” to determine the success or failure of the NMSI program in improving student performance as the College Board’s “numeric scores” will be in hand.
BAD NEWS:
The bad news comes when you compare the “letter grades” issued by MCSD faculty in AP classes with the “numeric scores” provided by the College Board. We had talked about using the “letter grades” as possible “leading indicators”, but you expressed some suspicion about doing that. Turns out you were correct.
According to the College Board, 42% of all Monroe students taking an AP course scored at a 3 or above, with 3 being the benchmark grade. Conversely, if you look at the “letter grades” issued locally, you find that 87% scored 3 or above, or twice as many as recorded by the College Board!
Obviously, you cannot trust local teachers to grade their students, at least in AP classes, with the same rigor that the College Board applies. I expect that there were a lot of students who received an A or B from their teachers and then a C, D or E from the College Board. That must be frustrating and clearly a disservice to our students. Let’s hope that NMSI can reverse the situation as there is no point in promoting more participation if there is not a commensurate improvement in production.
Dr. Larry Murray
I have long been critical of aspects of Monroe County’s grading scales and system. More specifically, I find it disturbing that there is an alarming disparity between MC student Grade Point Averages (norm referenced) when compared to similarly performing students on the SAT (criterion referenced). In short, MC students who perform “like” other national students on the SAT, have a GPA that is substantially higher.
However, I would take exception with Dr. Murray’s basic premise, that AP test scores should closely reflect the grades given in the classroom. The AP test’s purpose is to determine whether a student receives college credit for a class taken during high school, yet the student taking the course is still a high school student. Hence, the classroom grade measures the performance of a high school student, while the test score measures the performance of a college student. Whether the student receives college credit for the work done during high school is somewhat incidental to the entire experience.
College Board statistics show conclusively that students who have taken an advanced placement course are more likely to succeed with that course material when it is presented in college, than students who have not been presented that material previously. In other words, even if the high school student is not yet performing work at a college level, the process is preparing them to be able to do so (which is one of the major purposes of high school).
Moreover, more colleges and universities are not using AP test results to proficiency incoming students out of entry-level courses such as Biology 101. Rather, they are giving college credit for electives, while ensuring that freshmen have a thorough understanding of the basic concepts of a field of study, the way the institution presents them.
As a final note, I am pleased to hear that 42 percent of MCSD students are receiving some college credit for classes taken during high school. I believe that this demonstrates a significant improvement over time.
Did the students in Monroe’s charter schools score higher or are their score included in this figure??