Alabama’s #1 in AP Growth

Education News in Alabama for Sept. 14, 2010

AnchorAlabama�s #1 in AP Growth

Alabama is leading the nation in Advanced Placement (AP) growth, according to the College Board. In 2010 our students earned 17.7 percent more passing scores on college-level AP exams than the year before.

Gov. Bob Riley credited two initiatives with the progress:

  • ACCESS distance learning, which makes AP available in any high school in the state;
  • A+ College Ready, a training and incentive program that is working in 43 high schools around the state. A+ College Ready is a division of the A+ Education Partnership.

Alabama’s African-American students also showed major progress. Their passing scores are up 294% since 2006.

AnchorBlue Ribbon Winners

Four Alabama elementary schools won blue ribbons from the U.S. Dept. of Education for being among the state’s highest achieving schools. Even more impressive, 3 of the 4 have at least 40% of their kids coming from disadvantaged backgrounds (as indicated by the * below).

AnchorResearch Finding:
Analyzing the College Readiness Gap

Every year in the U.S., nearly 60% of first-year college students discover that they are not academically ready for postsecondary studies, according to a joint report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and the Southern Regional Education Board.

Why does this happen?

  • Earning a high school diploma does not mean graduates are ready for college. Many states, including Alabama, have high school exit exams that are not on a 12th-grade level.
  • A college-prep curriculum is necessary but not sufficient to ensure college readiness.

Get the Report

From the blog:

AnchorHow To Use an AP Instructional Planning Report
By Dixie Ross
Advanced Placement Instructional Planning Reports have just arrived at our schools. Every AP teacher needs to get a copy of their report so that they can identify strengths and weaknesses in their curriculum and instruction.

AnchorAs New Year Begins, Leaders Must Take Action
By Hayes Mizell

Self-serving hope that waits for other people to change does not improve teaching and learning. Change is a collective experience that requires participants to play one or more roles: advocate it, initiate it, support it, implement it, or accept it. For that process to begin, someone has to do more than hope; they have to change, moving from passivity to action.

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