The 9th Annual AP Report to the Nation State Supplement February 13, 2013 Arizona
Arizona Table of Contents 3 5 Fostering AP Participation and Success A Closer Look at Equity Gaps in AP Participation and Success About This Report This report provides educators and policymakers with information they can use to celebrate their successes, understand their unique challenges, and set meaningful goals to increase opportunity for all students. It s important to note that while AP Exams are valid measures of students content mastery of college-level studies in specific academic disciplines, AP results should never be used as the sole measure for gauging educational excellence and equity. Because reliable demographic data for nonpublic schools are not available for all states, this report represents public school students only. Additionally, this report looks at students entire experience with AP tracking exams taken by graduates throughout their high school careers as opposed to reporting exam results from a particular calendar year. Additional data are available at apreport.collegeboard.org. Note: Throughout this report, public high school graduates represent projections supplied in Knocking at the College Door (Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, 2008). 2
Fostering AP Participation and Success Figure 1 Growth in AP participation and success Number of graduates leaving high school having taken an AP Exam Number of 5,100 9,087 13,297 7,675 5,428 3,285 2002 2007 2011 14,407 8,307 2012 More graduates are succeeding on AP Exams today than took them in 2002 Figure 2 Participation in and success on AP Exams in the class of 2012 Percentage of Percentage of Percentage of Arizona Arts English History and Social Sciences 0.7% 0.5% 5.1% 9.2% 5.6% 11.3% 3 6 Art History, Music Theory, Studio Art: Drawing Portfolio, Studio Art: 2-D Design Portfolio, and Studio Art: 3-D Design Portfolio English Language and Composition, and English Literature and Composition Comparative Government and Politics, European History, Human Geography, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Psychology, United States Government and Politics, United States History, and World History History and social sciences had the greatest number of graduates scoring a 3 or higher Mathematics and Computer Science 5.4% 3.1% Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Computer Science A, Computer Science AB*, and Statistics Sciences 4.3% 2.1% Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Physics B, Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism, and Physics C: Mechanics World Languages 2.5% 1.8% Chinese Language and Culture, French Language and Culture, French Literature*, German Language and Culture, Italian Language and Culture*, Japanese Language and Culture, Latin Literature*, Latin: Vergil, Spanish Language, and Spanish Literature Any Discipline 10. 17.4% Total Number of Graduates: 82,885 * The AP Computer Science AB, French Literature, and Latin Literature Exams were last offered in the 2008-09 school year. AP Italian Language and Culture was discontinued after the 2008-09 school year, and was reinstated in 2011-12. 3
Fostering AP Participation and Success Figure 3 Score distributions of AP Exams taken by the class of 2012 during high school + Due to rounding, percentages do not always add up to 100.0. *AP Italian Language and Culture was discontinued after the 2008-09 school year, and was reinstated in 2011-12. Discontinued subjects, as well as those with fewer than five AP Exam takers, were omitted from this figure. 4
Low Income Figure 4 Trends in AP Exam participation and success... who are from low-income backgrounds 10,834 exams were taken by low-income graduates in the class of 2012 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 28.5% 29.7% 22.1% 23.7% 13.3% 5.4% 11.5% 5.1% 2003 2007 2011 2012 2003 2007 2011 2012 308 190 1,210 623 3,785 1,698 4,279 1,972 At time of press, the numbers of low-income students for each graduating class and for low-income AP Exam takers prior to the class of 2003 were not available. 5
Black/African American Figure 5 Trends in AP Exam participation and success students in the graduating class... who are black/african American 530 black/african American graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 4.3% 1.6% 1.2% 5.2% 2.6% 1.9% 6. 3.3% 2.2% 6.1% 3.7% 2.7% 2,008 80 38 3,663 236 101 4,813 438 170 5,058 530 222 6
Hispanic/Latino Figure 6 Trends in AP Exam participation and success students in the graduating class... who are Hispanic/Latino 4,360 Hispanic/Latino graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 26.5% 14.6% 14.6% 35.5% 30.5% 29.1% 20.5% 24.1% 17.5% 36.7% 30.3% 25.8% 12,479 743 479 21,609 1,864 951 28,371 3,876 1,849 30,396 4,360 2,140 7
American Indian/ Alaska Native Figure 7 Trends in AP Exam participation and success students in the graduating class... who are American Indian/Alaska Native 376 American Indian/ Alaska Native graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 5.9% 1.9% 0.8% 6.6% 2. 0.8% 6. 2.4% 0.8% 5.6% 2.6% 1. 2,762 96 26 4,651 184 42 4,762 313 63 4,645 376 86 8
Asian/Asian American/ Pacific Islander Figure 8 Trends in AP Exam participation and success students in the graduating class... who are Asian/Asian American/Pacific Islander 1,074 Asian/Asian American/Pacific Islander graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 6.9% 6.8% 2.7% 8.2% 7.3% 3. 9.3% 7.8% 3.7% 9.1% 7.5% 3.8% 1,286 349 228 2,094 665 443 2,916 1,039 712 3,158 1,074 757 9
White Figure 9 Trends in AP Exam participation and success students in the graduating class... who are white 7,352 white graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 70.9% 69.4% 60.7% 66.3% 61.7% 54.7% 58.7% 57.4% 52.2% 51. 48.4% 47.3% 2 1 28,640 3,537 2,328 38,833 5,609 3,598 38,663 6,941 4,507 39,192 7,352 4,770 10
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