California students do well on AP exams

California public school students continued to outperform their peers in most states on Advanced Placement tests last year, and the state’s huge population of Latino students was a particular bright spot, according to reports issued by the College Board on Wednesday. But the state’s overall performance slipped slightly from the previous year, and African American students performed dismally compared with their counterparts of other races.

A report on national AP results “reveals a true and startling lack of equity,” conceded Trevor Packer, a vice president of the College Board, which runs the Advanced Placement program as well as the SAT test. “What we can see is that African American students in particular are not receiving encouragement and support to enroll in AP classes.” Those who do are far less likely to succeed than students of other races.

The Advanced Placement program is intended to offer college-level material to high school students. Taking the classes can boost students’ grade-point averages, because the AP grades are given more weight than regular high school grades. And some colleges and universities give college credit to students who pass AP exams with scores of three or better on a five-point scale.

The program has become controversial in recent years, however, for two very different reasons. Some critics have complained that AP classes are inequitably distributed, with far more offerings in affluent, suburban schools than in the inner city. At the same time, some elite private schools have dropped AP classes out of concern that they rely too heavily on rote learning. Still, they remain popular in many schools, and are regarded as a virtual requirement for most students planning to apply to four-year universities.

Nearly one in five California public school students scored three or better on at least one AP exam last year, ranking the state eighth in the nation. New York ranked No. 1, with close to a quarter of its students achieving that benchmark.

Latino students, who lag in many academic assessments, showed surprising strength in AP classes. In large part, that was because many Spanish-speaking students excel in AP Spanish courses. In California, where Latino students account for 37% of all public school pupils, they made up 30.7% of the students who scored three or better in an Advanced Placement exam. However, if Spanish-language classes are removed from the list, that figure drops to 16.1%, according to Sue Landers, director of program development for the College Board.

That still represents a measure of success by a large number of students. “I think it is something to be applauded,” Landers said.

Asian students made up a much larger chunk of successful AP students than they did of the overall population, and white students lagged slightly. The group that provoked the most concern among College Board officials was African Americans, who are far less likely than any other sizable group to take AP classes, and even less likely to score a three or above on the tests. Although more black students than ever took AP classes in California last year, they accounted for less than 2% of all successful AP students, despite making up more than 7% of the state’s public school population.

College Board officials said that suggests that black students are not being sufficiently prepared or encouraged to take AP classes. “You can’t just drop a student into college-level courses in high school without laying the groundwork,” College Board President Gaston Caperton said in announcing the results.

mitchell.landsberg @latimes.com