REGIONAL : Record Numbers Pass Placement Tests

Following a statewide trend, high school seniors in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Conejo valleys are taking and passing Advanced Placement exams in record numbers, but Antelope Valley high schools posted a slight drop from 1991, according to statistics released Wednesday.

The Burbank, Las Virgenes and William S. Hart school districts each logged more than 30 successful AP tests per 100 students in the district, well above the national rate of about 12 qualifying exams per 100 students. The Antelope Valley Union High School District had a rate of 11.6 per 100 students, down from 15.3 per 100 in 1991.

The number of qualifying exams does not necessarily equal the number of seniors participating, because many students take more than one AP exam. Students who pass the tests receive college credit in a variety of subjects, from European history to physics.

The increases reported Wednesday often represented staggering jumps from the number of passing tests just eight years ago. The Hart district in Santa Clarita, for example, boasted a 551% rise in its rate of successful exams since 1984, while Burbank Unified’s pass rate rose 277%. Even Antelope Valley, despite coming in under the national average this year, improved by 544% from its 1984 showing.

However, Andrea Canady, director of curriculum and bilingual programs in Burbank, said the district’s high schools have mounted an aggressive effort to increase the number of AP courses on campus and the number of students enrolling in them.

“We are offering many more AP classes than we did” in the past, Canady said. “We are making a much bigger push in having kids take the exam.”

Gary Wexler, director of curriculum and instruction in the Hart high school district, also attributed the rise to a push for more AP courses and AP students. Last year, 527 students took AP exams, with a pass rate of 82%.

“We still have a lot of room to improve,” Wexler said. “I’d hope that in the next several years we’d see 700 students” take the tests.

Scores in Advanced Placement Tests Here are the Advanced Placement test results for Los Angeles County high school districts and the statewide average. The figures shown for the classes of 1983-84 and 1991-92 are the number of exams per 100 students that received passing scores. The percentage of change indicates the improvement or decline in the number of passing tests between 1983-84 and 1991-92.

NUMBER OF CLASS OF CLASS OF SENIORS ‘83-’84 ‘91-’92 % CHANGE State Average 260,693 7.2 20.7 +188 County Average 65,674 9.4 27.3 +190

Los Angeles County School Districts

NUMBER OF CLASS OF CLASS OF SENIORS ‘83-’84 ‘91-’92 % CHANGE ABC 1,469 10.5 62.5 +495 Alhambra City 1,993 10.6 37.9 +258 Antelope Valley 1,353 1.8 11.6 +544 Arcadia 619 24.2 108.7 +349 Azusa 545 0.4 * 0.7 +75 Baldwin Park 639 4.6* 15.5 +237 Bassett 286 1.9* 9.8 +418 Bellflower 499 0.5 14.0 +2,700 Beverly Hills 456 49.8 86.4 +73 Bonita 554 4.5 16.1 +258 Burbank 819 9.0 33.9 +277 Centinela Valley 1,162 0.8 10.4 +1,200 Charter Oak 321 1.9 6.2 +226 Claremont 414 17.4* 51.4 +195 Compton 750 0.3 4.8 +1,500 Covina-Valley 634 6.0 27.3 +355 Culver City 291 16.7 44.7 +168 Downey 942 3.5 33.9 +869 Duarte 234 0.8* 10.3 +1,617 El Monte Union 1,338 0.1 10.5 +10,400 El Rancho 561 1.2* 12.5 +942 El Segundo 152 3.3 14.5 +339 Glendale 1,800 8.7 20.5 +137 Glendora 327 4.5 40.7 +785 HaciendaL.Puente 1,487 3.5 22.5 +549 Inglewood 663 0.7 2.6 +271 L.A. County 153 22.1* 9.8 -56 La Canada 280 35.0 95.7 +173 Las Virgenes 677 22.4 34.4 +54 Long Beach 3,522 9.5 19.9 +107 Los Angeles 24,892 11.3 26.2 +132 Lynwood 625 1.3 9.0 +592 Monrovia 253 5.5 19.0 +239 Montebello 1,825 3.3 22.1 +570 Norwalk-La Mirada 864 0.7 10.8 +1,443 P.V. Peninsula 803 36.3 112.2 +209 Paramount 603 1.8* 2.3 +28 Pasadena 1,223 4.4 8.2 +86 Pomona 891 0.1* 6.4 +6,300 Rowland 1,184 3.1 25.8 +732 San Marino 253 34.8 75.9 +118 S. Monica-Malibu 682 13.1 37.8 +189 South Bay Union 704 14.5 44.5 +207 South Pasadena 280 25.7 50.0 +95 Temple City 361 1.3 22.4 +1,623 Torrance 1,337 9.0 40.9 +354 Walnut Valley 966 11.1 47.1 +324 West Covina 490 8.1 12.7 +57 Whittier Union 1,288 3.4 12.2 +259 William S. Hart 1,208 5.5 35.8 +551

* 1983-84 data not available. The substituted figure is for the first year after 1983-84 with data available.Source: California Department of Education