AdvanceKentucky AP program posts more ‘wins’

Per the Madisonville Messenger (subscription or fee), you can add Hopkins County to the growing number of school systems in Kentucky that have greatly benefitted from the AdvanceKentucky program to provide better trained teachers and other incentives in Advanced Placement course offerings around the state.

The paper reports that the number of students in Hopkins County recording college credit qualifying AP scores of 3 or higher, which usually earns college credit, was 113 in 2011. That’s a considerable jump from the 37 students with qualifying scores in 2009.

At present, AdvanceKentucky serves 64 high schools throughout the state. We are hoping this outstandingly successful program, which accounted for an incredibly high proportion of all the AP course improvement in Kentucky last year, will soon add at least one high minority high school from Louisville.

So far, Kentucky’s largest school district has shunned this program, possibly because the teachers union there doesn’t like merit pay for teachers, and AdvanceKentucky rewards AP teachers with $100 for each student that gets a qualifying AP score. Let’s hope the adults in Louisville will soon let at least some of the students there have a chance to participate in a highly successful AP course initiative.

AdvanceKentucky scores another hit with AP course performance

One of the big highlights at today’s meeting of the Kentucky Board of Education was an eye-catching presentation from the outstanding folks at AdvanceKentucky, the privately funded effort to vastly increase the opportunity for Kentucky’s public school students to take Advanced Placement courses in Math, Science and English (MSE).

Advance Kentucky Presentation Team (L to R), Amy Patterson, Lew Acampora, Joanne Lang (Executive Director), Tina Rose, Monique Morton, Tricia Rennen (College Board)

Take a look at this graphic, which shows AdvanceKentucky schools’ improvement in college credit Qualifying Scores (QS) on the AP (scores of 3, 4 or 5) between 2009 and 2010 compared to high schools across the commonwealth and the nation.


Except, there really isn’t any comparison. Statewide, Kentucky saw a 9.1 percent increase in the number of AP scores of 3, 4, or 5.

But, in the first group of AdvanceKentucky schools (Cohort 1, which included 12 schools), the number of qualifying scores increased 45.2 percent between 2009 and 2010. This was just shy of five times the increase statewide. Cohort 1’s percentage increase in qualifying AP scores is up by a factor of 162 percent since 2008.

WOW!

For the 16 schools in AdvanceKentucky’s Cohort 2, which entered the program in 2009, there was a 62 percent rise in the number of tests graded 3, 4 or 5 between 2009 and 2010.

DOUBLE WOW!

It’s no wonder that AdvanceKentucky is expanding again. Today it was announced that another 20 schools will take part in the next school term. That raises the total number of participating schools to 64 spread across 52 Kentucky school districts.

And, that raises a sad note. Even with the announcement of the 20 new Cohort 4 schools, NOT ONE SCHOOL FROM KENTUCKY’S LARGEST SCHOOL DISTRICT IS PARTICIPATING IN ADVANCEKENTUCKY. Not one.

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