Some Good News for L.A. on Advanced Tests

Los Angeles school officials announced Thursday that the number of students taking Advanced Placement exams rose 11.6% this year, continuing a decade-long trend, while scores increased slightly.

The results gave school officials a welcomed chance to boast, coming days after the release of disappointing scores on the Stanford Nine standardized test. The district ranked in the bottom third nationally on that examination.

“I am very delighted to see these test scores,” said school board President Julie Korenstein at a news conference to release the Advanced Placement results.

In addition to the increase in students taking the exams--which are offered in a variety of subjects and can be used to gain college credits while still in high school--the number of tests taken rose at the same rate. The increases indicate that more students are tackling tougher course work, said Janice Gams, spokeswoman for the College Board, the nonprofit organization that administers the tests.

Expansion of Advanced Placement courses, college preparatory classes that prepare students for the exams, was one of the 21 goals in the contract of Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Ruben Zacarias.

Although the exams whose results were announced Thursday were taken before he assumed the district’s top job in July, Zacarias said he was excited by the outcome.

Bob Collins, director of instruction for the district’s high schools, called the 16,506 exams taken this year “remarkable for an urban school district.”

“We are expanding this AP program at a rate that is explosive,” he said.

More students have taken the exams in the Los Angeles district each year since 1986. Scores, however, dived two years ago from a mean of 2.94 to 2.8. A score above 3 qualifies a student for college credit.

The district’s mean score of 2.85 this year represented the second consecutive increase. Districtwide, 16.9% of students scored 5, which signifies that they are “extremely well qualified” in college level work, and 16.4% scored 4, making them “well qualified.” Both groups were up slightly from the 16% scoring at each of those levels last year.

Still, the district’s scores were below the statewide and national means, both slightly above 3.

However, Gams said the fact that more students took the tests without lowering the mean score is a sign that the college preparation work is being mastered.

Statewide, 15 high schools were among the top 50 nationally that administered the most Advanced Placement exams--700 or more. All but two of the 15 were public campuses, and all had above-average pass rates on the rigorous tests, according to Wade Curry, who directs the Advanced Placement program for the New York-based College Board.

In Los Angeles County, the schools whose students took the most Advanced Placement tests overall were Arcadia High, Beverly Hills High, Whitney High in Cerritos, Harvard-Westlake in North Hollywood, Long Beach Polytechnic High, North Hollywood High and Palos Verdes Peninsula High.

In Orange County, the honors list includes University High in Irvine, Sunny Hills High in Fullerton and Fountain Valley High.

Clovis West High School in the Fresno area, La Jolla High and Torrey Pines High in San Diego County, and Lowell High and St. Ignatius College Prep in San Francisco round out the list.

North Hollywood High, a perennial Advanced Placement leader that includes a magnet school for highly gifted students, topped all Los Angeles campuses in the number of exams taken, at 1,244.

Much more dramatic increases occurred at several schools with historically low levels of participation. Dorsey High in the Crenshaw district increased from 42 exams taken to 82 and Eagle Rock High from 111 to 204.

Times staff writer Hector Tobar and education writer Elaine Woo contributed to this story.