Maryland and Virginia’s high school classes of 2009 led the nation on college-level Advanced Placement exams, carried largely by the strength and size of Montgomery and Fairfax counties.
For the second year in a row, Maryland had the nation’s highest percentage of graduating seniors scoring a passing mark on the tests eligible for college credit at many universities. Nearly 25 percent of Maryland seniors passed at least one AP test in high school, compared with 23 percent in third-place Virginia. New York placed second at 24 percent.
About 6 percent of D.C. public and charter high school students earned a passing score, down from 7 percent for the class of 2008, according to a national report released Wednesday by the New York-based College Board.
Over the past decade, AP exams have become an increasingly important measure of a school system’s success. National high school rankings put out annually by Newsweek magazine and U.S. News & World Report rely almost exclusively on AP participation, and to a lesser extent on student success on the exams.
Montgomery County students accounted for about 40 percent of Maryland’s passing AP scores in 2009.
Montgomery County Board of Education President Shirley Brandman called the students’ success a clear demonstration “that they want to take challenging classes and are ready for college-level work.”
In Fairfax, high school students earned a passing score on nearly 71 percent of the 30,000 tests taken in the district, up from 66 percent in 2006, and outpacing peers throughout the state.
Overall, Virginia’s 2009 graduates saw the largest five-year pass rate increase in the history of the report, jumping to 23 percent passing from 17 percent for the class of 2004. At the same time, participation leapt to 36 percent from 27 percent. Maryland student participation jumped to 40 percent from 29 percent, and D.C. participation to 27 percent from 18 percent.
