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June 6, 2009

Students taking advanced placement have tripled in Duval County, but more fail

Topher Sanders, Mary Kelli Palka:

Briana Hudson, a senior at Wolfson High School, took her first Advanced Placement class two years ago and received a B.

She was happy with the boost to her grade-point average. She was excited by the chance to receive college credit by passing the national AP exam. She thought her class had prepared her for it, which was the point.

Except it didn't. She didn't pass.

"But if I'm getting B's in the class, and I'm doing all the work and turning everything in and I answer questions and you say that they're right," Hudson, 18, said, "... it's just kind of like everything that I did was basically a lie."

Hudson is one of thousands of Duval County Public Schools students who passed AP classes in the past two years but failed to pass the related AP exams, a Times-Union review has shown.

Duval students passed 80 percent of their AP courses last year with a "C" or better. But only 23 percent of the national AP exams, taken near the end of those courses, were passed.

The national exam pass rate for public schools was 56 percent.

The disparity widens depending on the school: Students in the district's four "A" high schools, whose students are largely white, passed 85 percent of their AP courses and 42 percent of their exams. In the four "F" schools, whose students are largely black or from lower income families, 74 percent of the courses were passed - and only 6 percent of the exams were.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 6, 2009 2:42 AM
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