The College Board’s Advanced Placement program is expanding in American high schools, but as it moves from being a program primarily for elite students, the number of test-takers who fail A.P. exams is growing  although not as much as the number of those who pass.  According to a College Board report, about 800,000 public high school seniors in last May’s graduating class, or 26.5 percent of the class, took an A.P. exam at some point in their high school career, almost twice as many as took A.P. exams in the class of 2001.  While the majority of students who take A.P. exams still earn a passing score of 3, 4 or 5, which is enough to earn college credit at many institutions, the share of failing scores has risen with the program’s rapid expansion. In 2009, about 43 percent of the 2.3 million A.P. exams taken earned a failing grade of 1 or 2, compared with 39 percent of the one million exams taken by the class of 2001.  “Are we getting more 1’s and 2’s? Absolutely,” said Trevor Packer, vice president of the Advanced Placement program. “But are we getting more 3’s, 4’s and 5’s? Even more so. So the question is whether that increase in the percentage of low scores is a reasonable tradeoff for the even larger growth in high scores. And I don’t know an educator who wouldn’t think it’s a good tradeoff to take the risk and give more courses that we know have been good for the few.”  The College Board report emphasized the rising proportion of seniors who had taken at least one A.P. exam, and received at least one passing grade. The share who took at least one A.P. exam last year was a third larger than it was for the class of 2004, while the share who got a grade of three or higher was about a quarter higher than in the class of 2004.  Whether there are benefits for students who take an A.P. exam, but do not pass, remains a matter for debate.  The College Board said that students who got a 2 or higher were more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree within four years than other students. Some educators say that being exposed to college-level work helps even those students who fail the exam.  “It doesn’t get you college credit if you get a 1 or a 2, but I think it does provide students with a sense of the kind of skills and critical thinking that college will require from them,” said Jean Robinson, associate dean for undergraduate education at Indiana University. “I think the focus shouldn’t be so much on students obtaining credit and taking care of some intro course while they’re in high school, as on getting the skills they’re going to need.”  Many high schools have adopted extensive Advanced Placement offerings as a goal, to increase the rigor of their curriculum, to give students a head start on college credit, and to help them impress college admissions offices. On average, the College Board reported, high schools now offer 10 A.P. courses, up from seven five years ago.  In April 2008, the College Board announced that, because of the costs, it was discontinuing four programs  French literature, computer science AB, Italian and Latin literature  each of which had less than 5,000 participants. Those exams were given for the last time in May.  But several other programs continue with low enrollment: Chinese, German, Japanese, Latin: Vergil, and Studio Art: 3-D Design. Each had less fewer than 5,000 exam-takers in May.  Mr. Packer said there were no plans to eliminate any other Advanced Placement programs, and he added that the Chinese and Japanese exams, offered for the first time in 2007, were relatively inexpensive to offer because they were administered via computer.  Many states have been working to expand their Advanced Placement programs, in some cases paying for students to take the exams.
A report from the College Board indicates that high school students took 2.3 million Advanced Placement exams last year, passing 57 percent of them.