Suffolk students don't make the grade on AP tests

I really don't see a high fail rate on an advanced placement a problem. On the other hand, trying to artificially improve those numbers by putting a financial disincentive to taking the test is a serious problem. That's something slimy politicians would do and should not even occur to educators.

"The world needs ditch diggers too."

It's far too easy to simply blame the teachers. Yes, there are a few bad teachers out there but, most of them try hard and given the current environment I don't know why any of them bother. Thankfully, they do. We will never be able to make all the kids and all the kids parents care enough to actually read a book. Never have and never will. The problem, as I see it, is that there simply are not enough manufacturing jobs anymore in this country to absorb all the kids that will never be able to do much more than manual labor and there are plenty of them. Where are the GE plants, Ford plants, steel mills, and the factories that everything in Walmart comes from. Not here! Suffolk can't even figure out why the CenterPoint facility is important.

The low pay of teachers virtually ensures a low-quality work force. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the SAT scores of education majors is the lowest of any declared major. Are SAT scores the only measure of academic potential? Of course not. It is, however, somewhat ironic that people going into a profession requiring the administration of tests are so bad at taking them themselves.

Students are trained to pass the test but not retain the information for future application. Instead the older material has a tendency to be forgotten in favor of the new material presented in the classroom. This is not the fault of the teacher so much as it is a point that parents and teachers should attempt to teach students the need to retain information for future application!

The article suggests training teachers during the summer to strengthen the teachers so more students might pass the AP exams. This idea points to the teachers as being at fault for those students who do not pass the AP exam. But what about the success stories where studetns, who sat in the same classes and were given the same coursework DID pass the AP exam! This clearly shows it isnt a teacher issue, but a student issue.

If NO students passed above the score of 3, then it is reasonable to examine the quality of instruction, but as the article points out, there are students scoring 3s and higher. Those analyzing the problem should look more closely to student academic behavior

You don't have to pay to take the CLASS--but you must for the test and the college credits--that's how it is in Beach and Chesapeake...
And the previous poster is correct that these are the brightest kids who take these classes. Maybe these kids aren't applying themselves as they should--it's supposed to be on par w/a college class IE--they must study and commit to the higher workload.

"More students are enrolling in AP classes, but not enough are taking the related exams seriously, said Superintendent Milton Liverman."

Apart from any early college credit these kids get from taking the exam exposure to advanced content is going to be to their benefit. The real question is what is an acceptable pass rate and what is the best way to acheive it. Keep in mind we're talking about high school kids doing first year college level work.

It is easy to blame teachers for students failures, I know, I have been teaching 10 years and have seen the all too familiar finger pointing at teaching staff when too often it is the students that are failing to perform.

In the article, it states that the majority of students pass the classroom exercises and tests, finishing with As and Bs; however, the larger portion of these same students are performing poorly on the AP tests.

In my experience it is often the case that students will focus their attention to passing the classroom exercises and test, and will generally do well because the instruction is still relatively fresh in their mind AND the studying-jam session the night before the tests ensure doing well.

Most students, after passing the classroom tests, generally disregard and even forget the materials as the class focus shifts to new learning. As each set of topics are introduced in the course of the makring period, sememster, and school year, the material once proven as mastered shifts to the realm of forgotten material.

Students are trained to pass the test but not retain the information for future application. Instead the older material has a tendency

I wanted to add to the fact that gradebooks are online now. Principals have all the opportunity to look in on your grades, question what they are seeing, and 'correct' as they see fit. You get the question: "are you sure Student X really made an F...sure it wasn't a D?" I had a student be passed that missed more than the acceptable days by, oh, 100! But, he was ready to move on, and things were fixed to see that it happened for him.

Parents should always question their child, their child's teacher, and if those answers don't suffice, keep climbing until you find your answer.

What we're seeing is a lack of interest that SPS is taking advantage of.

The test is already paid for through taxes. With a failure rate like Suffolk's, the solution seems to be reassess how you prepare these kids for the AP test. Usually, the kids who are in AP are ones that are honor roll students anyway -- at least that is how it was when I was in high school. So blaming the children here doesn't seem proper.

Since the start of the kindler and gentler policies of regimes gone past we have been telling our kids its okay to be a loser and in fact here is your reward - the same reward we give the winners for losing. The real world is going to eat these losers up because they will expect the same thing winners get. Comparatively to; "Overall, the performance on AP exams didn't reflect the grades earned in those classes…" The SOL system has the same issue. How can a student get an A in History and fail the History portion of the SOL? This is not our teacher's fault rather the fault of the system or system of systems they have to abide by. Give the responsibility of teaching our children back to our teachers. Let them decide what tools, tactics and tradecraft works best at their school. How come other schools are better? What demographics are involved for student and teacher populations? What is the data behind the data that the AP metrics support? Scores don't mean a thing unless there is traceability back to who, what, when, where and why.

I think we need to step back a bit here. The AP exam is more difficult and specialized than the SAT exam. I have taken AP classes at an elite college prep school and didn't take the AP exam before college. The kids that did take the AP exam did extremely well in class or had the extra money and motivation to take the test. I think that is a common situation. You can't just compare the national passing rate of 59% for self selected students to a lower passing rate for a whole class of students that took the class for free and may not have otherwise taken it. A rigorous high school class is required to pass the AP exam. You have a choice, either make the class more difficult and allow some students to fail or accept the fact that some kids are going to pass the class but not the AP exam.

As an ex-teacher with a local school district. I can tell you my district pushed for inflated grades and pass them no matter what. My department chair once when in after I posted my grades to the school server and passed 4 students I had failed. The reason he did not want them in his class next year... when I objected Iw as told I was not a team Player and did not care for the children.. That ended my thoughts of teaching for a living.

As an ex-teacher with a local school district. I can tell you my district pushed for inflated grades and pass them no matter what. My department chair once when in after I posted my grades to the school server and passed 4 students I had fail. The reason he did not want them in his class next year... when I objected Iw as told I was not a team Player and did not care for the children.. That ended my thoughts of teaching for a living.

It isn't the teachers fault that these kids didn't pass. It should be the parents fault to make sure that these kids do there homework instead of playing video games, hanging out with friends, or watching TV. When I was in school (in the 70's) we had a couple of kids that didn't pass but it was their fault not the teachers. People place blame on teachers when their kids don't pass but it's no one's fault but themselves. I have 3 boys all grown and I made sure each of my boys did their homework before they did anything else. They should go back to the way we were taught in school and in every grade even in high school we had P.E. (physical education). Too many fat kids not getting the exercise because parents won't make them go out and play.

That's right- blame the teachers for everything. It's got to be their fault that parents at home don't spend any time with their kids anymore. It's got to be the teachers fault that the kids don't do their homework, or come to school unprepared for a test and fail. Come on parents, why are you so quick to jump on the teachers when you know dag on well you haven't done your part at home either.

I hope one of the recommendations is to rethink the AP admission guidelines. Obviously, many students who should NOT be in these AP courses are taking them. These days, students just seek the "I'm in AP Biology or AP Art History" label. They want the status but obviously not the work, the college level work, attached to it.

I take exception with your comment about teachers. I am a teacher and I can assure that I teach each and every day. I do NOT inflate grades...my students get the grades they earn.

I am SO sick of society automatically blaming the teachers. How about putting the blame where it needs to be....on the students. We have turned into a "win-win" society where everybody gets the same reward. That's not real life and it's unfair to children that we teach them this. If they don't pass the exam, then it's on them...NOT on the teachers. The teachers don't know what's on the exam so they can't teach to the test.

K3teacher1968,

I'm sure that there are plenty of great teachers out there who care and work hard every day to teach their students. You sound like one of them, thanks.

You bring up a good point about students who don't care or try, and their parents who are just as bad. I think your point is valid with regards to average students, but these are AP students. 75% of the kids taking those AP tests shouldn't have been in the AP classes to begin with. They were placed there because of inflated grades, and now it is visible for everyone to see.

Very few colleges give actual college credit for AP or even IB scores unless they are perfect scores. The blame is NOT with the teachers in fact most of the AP teachers are highly motivated individuals. The students of today do not take things seriously for the most part. Once a student gets into college, professors don't consider whether or not the student was in AP classes or not. AP and IB programs are highly over rated these days.

We read this article like it's new news. Having taught for SPS for years. Teachers will be blamed. I suggest, you go to the top - to Dr. Liverman and Deran Whitley. These men are the ones who give the 'planless' orders- jumping on every bandwagon that rolls through Suffolk, whether or not it’s been tried or tested. They arrange 'getaways' at the districts expense for the higher-ups who work in the administrative offices, instead of funneling that money to the teachers who need it. Many teachers are like me; spending the little money I earn, to buy my students critical supplies. Our PTA would give us $50 at the start of the year to buy what we would need. $50 wouldn't buy enough of anything for a class of 30! If a student is willing to put themselves through the more extensive AP classes, how dare Whitley blame the student for not trying? Perhaps the necessary materials were not available for instruction! The school I attended had practice AP's available and we were tested weekly, sometimes bi-weekly, to be familiarize ourselves with the formats and potential questions. Isn't it amazing that Suffolk boasted in the spring that all their schools met accreditation, neglecting to say