More Seniors Pass College Credit Exams : Education: Students are performing better than ever despite rapid growth among poor and immigrant populations, state schools Supt. Bill Honig says.

Significantly higher numbers of California high school seniors are passing the demanding Advanced Placement examinations for college credits, state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig said Wednesday.

In addition, more than 31% of the state’s public high school seniors--up from 25.4% in 1985--are completing the series of courses required for admission to the University of California system.

“More of California students from all backgrounds are performing at higher levels than ever before. . . . We are successfully preparing more students for the rigors of college and are increasing their chances of success in later life,” Honig said.

He noted that the gains, over five- and six-year periods, came despite “explosive demographic changes.” California is experiencing rapid growth in its poor and immigrant populations, and school enrollments are climbing dramatically. High school students who pass the Advanced Placement exams--offered annually nationwide by the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J.--can receive college credit in 24 subject areas. Some students take more than one exam.

In California, the rate of seniors passing the exams--23.7% during the 1989-90 school year--was almost double that of seniors nationwide--12.7%, according to information compiled by the Educational Testing Service and released by the state Department of Education.

In 1983-84, the year Honig’s department kicked off its efforts to improve academic achievement, the rate of California seniors passing the exams was 9.5%, or 9.5 tests passed for every 100 seniors enrolled in school. The national average that year was 6.3%.

Put another way, there were about 80,000 Advanced Placement exams given in California last year; 57,500, about 70%, were passed.

Honig praised the gains in the fast-growing, 86%-minority Los Angeles Unified School District, which has experienced sharp increases recently in the numbers of students who are poor, speak little English or suffer from other problems that hinder their academic success. About 23.4% of the district’s Class of 1990 passed Advanced Placement tests, up 107% over the class of 1984.

“This is a strong positive for the LAUSD . . . one of the best performances L.A. has done in all the things we measure,” Honig said. “They are an increasingly low-socioeconomic district, and yet they are right at the state average and at twice the national average.”

But the Los Angeles district’s move to a new calendar this summer is causing some worry. Critics of the new calendar, which provides a winter break of about eight weeks, fear that it will put area seniors at a disadvantage in taking the tests, administered each May. They say Los Angeles students will have put in less class time than most of their counterparts around the country.

Honig said Wednesday that he believes the fears are largely unfounded because students can be encouraged to study on their own during the break. “This is the kind of test where you have to know your stuff over the long haul,” he said.

However, he said, he is worried about what effects deep cuts in school spending would have on the years-long education reform efforts in the state. Struggling to close a projected state deficit of $12.6 billion, Gov. Pete Wilson has proposed a budget that would slash more than $2 billion from schools, which depend on the state for most of their funding.

“I’m afraid, given the potential budget cuts, that many districts will have to cut out their AP classes” or shorten the school day, thus eliminating some of the opportunities students have to take college preparatory courses, Honig said.

The “AP” phenomenon, once familiar only in college-bound circles, got wider recognition after a 1988 movie “Stand and Deliver” highlighted the success of Los Angeles teacher Jaime Escalante in preparing his low-income, Latino students to pass the calculus test.

Also on Wednesday, the education department released figures detailing increases in the proportion of the state’s high school students completing UC-required courses.

In the Class of 1985, 57,176 of the 225,448 graduates--25.4%--had successfully taken all the courses. For the Class of 1990, the numbers climbed to 73,743 out of 236,291 graduates, or 31.2%.

Additionally, all major ethnic groups in the state showed improvement. The largest five-year gains were made by American or Alaskan Indian (71%), blacks (48%) and Pacific Islanders (51%). But these groups still lag. For 1990, Asians, Filipinos and Anglos had the largest percentages of students finishing the requirements--50.9%, 40.7% and 32.9% respectively.

The UC system requires one year of U.S. history, four years of English, three years of math, one year of a laboratory science such as chemistry, two years of foreign language and four years of college-prep electives.

PASSING THE TESTS

Increasing numbers of California high school seniors are passing the demanding, nationally administered Advanced Placement exams for college credit. The following shows the number of exams passed per 100 seniors enrolled, in selected districts in Los Angeles County . Some students take more than one of the exams.

NAME CLASS CLASS % INCREASE OF ’84 OF ’90 Los Angeles Unified 11.3 23.4 107% Burbank Unified 9.0 40.6 351 Long Beach Unified 9.6 19.1 99 Pasadena Unified 4.4 13.5 207 Santa Monica-Malibu 13.1 29.0 121 Torrance Unified 9.0 35.9 299 West Covina Unified 8.1 13.6 68 L.A. County Average 9.4 25.2 168 State Average 9.5 23.7 149

SOURCE: Educational Testing Service and state Department of Education

COLLEGE-BOUND STUDENTS

During the past five years, students from all ethnic groups have made advances in completing courses required for admission to a University of California campus, according to figures released by the state Department of Education.

CLASS OF ’85 Ethnic Group Total Number Completing Percent Graduates Admission Courses American Indian/Alaskan 1,833 226 12.3 Asian 16,693 7,068 42.3 Black 19,011 3,266 17.2 Filipino 4,483 1,367 30.5 Latino 41,958 6,469 15.4 Pacific Islander 1,205 227 18.8 White 140,263 38,553 27.5 Total 225,446 57,176 25.4 CLASS OF ’90 Ethnic Group Total Number Completing Percent Graduates Admission Courses American Indian/Alaskan 1,886 397 21.0 Asian 24,801 12,612 50.9 Black 17,460 4,444 25.5 Filipino 6,739 2,745 40.7 Latino 55,152 10,700 19.4 Pacific Islander 1,326 376 28.4 White 128,927 42,469 32.9 Total 236,291 73,743 31.2