The School Board has overhauled its scoring methodology for almost all of Superior Placement exams over the previous two years. On Monday, the nonprofit revealed on its web site the first public acknowledgment of the shift in the way in which it scores greater than three million assessments every year.
Previous to 2022, AP exams in every topic space had been scored in accordance with requirements set each 5 to 10 years by a panel of 10 to 18 educators—about two-thirds of them faculty professors and one-third highschool academics—who used “particular person experience to estimate the share of AP college students who ought to earn every AP rating,” in accordance with an announcement from the School Board. The brand new methodology, known as evidence-based commonplace setting (EBSS), analyzes a lot bigger knowledge units with enter from a whole lot of college members who assessment the exams and suggest scoring distributions primarily based on their college students’ efficiency in comparable faculty courses.
In an interview with Inside Greater Ed, Trevor Packer, head of the AP program, mentioned the School Board had been seeking to revamp its scoring course of for years however solely developed the capability for the brand new methodology after 2019, when it launched AP Classroom, a digital platform for course supplies that instructors can use to trace scholar progress and administer apply exams. That allowed the School Board to collect giant quantities of metadata evaluating scholar examination efficiency to grades in AP courses, Packer mentioned, and undertake what he known as “a extra scientific, data-focused methodology.”
“[EBSS] guards towards variations in panelists as a result of it retains the requirements tied to particular expertise and content material information demonstrations that we will keep over time,” he mentioned. “It additionally gained’t fluctuate in accordance with faculty grade inflation.”
In 2022 and 2023, the School Board used each its conventional panel-setting course of and the brand new EBSS methodology aspect by aspect to match scoring outcomes; when the 2 had been at odds, officers relied on the EBSS rating, in accordance with a School Board spokesperson. This 12 months they switched the overwhelming majority of AP checks to EBSS solely; 5 remaining exams proceed to make use of requirements set by panels however will transition to EBSS within the close to future.
The change in score-setting methodology explains a major improve in common scholar scores on many AP exams over the previous few years, which have led to headlines like “Are AP Exams Getting Simpler?” and infected considerations that the School Board is implementing much less rigorous scoring insurance policies to broaden the enchantment of AP programs.
Packer mentioned the rise in common rating distribution for some AP exams is definitely a course correction for topics that had lengthy lagged behind others when it comes to the coed success price—the variety of check takers who earn at the very least a 3, the minimal rating most schools require to grant tutorial credit score. He mentioned the purpose was to carry all exams to between a 60 and 80 % success price.
“We’d by no means place this as a recalibration … these AP scores have moved round for many years,” Packer mentioned. “We’re utilizing proof and knowledge to place scores the place they need to be.”
Not everybody within the AP group is on board. John Moscatiello, a highschool trainer in New Jersey and founding father of Marco Studying, an organization that helps faculty districts constructing AP and literacy applications, dubbed the scoring shift “the Nice Recalibration” in a essential weblog submit (and accompanying TikTok posts) that has made the rounds in AP trainer Fb teams and admissions blogs. He mentioned that even after seeing the official clarification on Monday, he’s unclear on how the scoring change is a response to goal knowledge.
“This doesn’t appear to be reasoning your strategy to a conclusion primarily based on proof; it looks like rationalizing your strategy to a foregone conclusion,” Moscatiello mentioned. “It could be that that is the proper factor to do, and that scores have been misaligned for years, however I feel there are official doubts about this methodology and why it at all times appears to provide the identical results of sustaining and elevating scores quite than reducing them.”
Swinging Requirements
For the reason that School Board started implementing EBSS in 2022, 9 AP exams have seen important will increase in scholar success charges: AP Literature, U.S. Historical past, U.S. Authorities, World Historical past, European Historical past, Macroeconomics and Microeconomics, and two science checks, AP Biology and Chemistry.
For a few of these programs, the upward swing has been so sudden and steep that it’s raised eyebrows amongst observers throughout greater training. Rating distributions earlier than 2022 will not be accessible by way of the School Board’s webpage, which incorporates hyperlinks to scores for 2023 and 2024. However the knowledge is nonetheless accessible on PDFs that had been at one time posted to the School Board web site, which may be discovered by means of a easy Google search.
The success price for AP English Literature, for instance, skyrocketed the 12 months officers switched to EBSS, from 43.9 % in 2021 to 77.9 % in 2022. For AP U.S. Historical past, the success price elevated by 16.7 share factors in 2024, the primary 12 months EBSS was used; charges for AP Chemistry went up by 21 share factors between 2022 and 2023, additionally the primary 12 months EBSS scoring was launched in that topic.
The modifications are placing on the particular person rating degree, too. In 2021 12 % of scholars earned a 4 on their AP English Literature examination, and fewer than 5 % earned a 5; the following 12 months, throughout the EBSS pilot, 27 % earned 4s and 16 % earned 5s. The inverse is true on the opposite finish of the dimensions: 22.5 % of scholars earned a 1 on their AP Chemistry examination in 2022, however when EBSS was utilized the next 12 months, that quantity fell to simply 8 %.
Packer mentioned scoring for such programs has at all times been extra variable than for the opposite 26 AP exams on provide.
“In most AP topics, that success price has usually been between 60 and 80 %. However in these 9 primarily humanities topics, that’s been rather more risky … English [Literature], for instance, has ranged from a 70 % success price to down within the 40s,” he mentioned. “These had been defensible methodologies and scores, however the variation was onerous to elucidate—we had a tough time explaining it to ourselves, not to mention to academics and college.”
Packer mentioned he thought of the likelihood that an explosion in AP check takers had led to a lower in common scores: from 2012 to 2022, the variety of excessive schoolers taking AP courses grew by almost 220,000. However the EBSS evaluation didn’t bear that out, Packer mentioned.
“There’s no indication that AP inhabitants development has watered down college students’ potential to attain 3 or higher,” he mentioned. “I want that was the case—that AP was so extensively accessible now, and all college students going to school are taking AP, so you’re seeing a a lot lower-ability inhabitants. That’s simply not what the information present.”
Reasonably, it appeared the panel standard-setting course of itself was responsible for the decline, which Packer mentioned may very well be because of the extra subjective nature of these programs.
“I’ve my very own speculation that faculty curriculum is much less constant throughout humanities disciplines than it could be in STEM disciplines,” Packer mentioned. “Possibly that’s the reason the panel-based methodology was extra topic to variation over time, as panelists modified and introduced their very own establishments’ extra distinctive views to bear.”
Some faculty admissions leaders have supported the scoring shift regardless of the sudden hike in success charges. Stuart Schmill, dean of admissions and monetary assist on the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how, mentioned he noticed no purpose to vary how MIT considers AP check ends in admissions selections or in granting faculty credit score.
“I’ve talked with School Board workers in regards to the updates to the scoring requirements and really feel assured that the requirements are acceptable and aligned with scholar efficiency in faculty courses,” he wrote in an e-mail to Inside Greater Ed.
Of the 5 hottest AP programs on provide, 4 noticed their success charges surge after EBSS implementation; the opposite, AP English Language and Composition, has but to maneuver to EBSS. That has raised considerations that the School Board’s true motives are to broaden the enchantment of its fastest-growing AP choices by making it simpler to earn faculty credit score. Jon Boeckenstedt, vice provost for enrollment administration at Oregon State College and a vocal critic of the School Board, known as the scoring shift “a callous try to generate extra income.”
“I’m very involved about successfully passing college students out of entry-level courses and getting them positioned into extra superior courses they may not be prepared for,” he wrote in an e-mail. “For a corporation that claims to be student-focused, [the College Board] appears to be fully oblivious to the downstream results of their enterprise and income enhancement selections.”
Packer was adamant that the scoring modifications don’t have anything to do with rising AP course enrollment.
“If the information steered we wanted to drop the scores, as panels have finished previously, then we’d have … Now, we’ve proof saying the scores ought to be greater in these 9 topics, so we increase them,” he mentioned. “Self-interest is under no circumstances our motivation, as some might declare.”
Who’s within the Know?
Whereas the School Board started utilizing EBSS to set AP check scores in 2022, as not too long ago as Could 27 its webpage on scoring solely talked about the normal panel course of, in accordance with archived variations of the positioning on the Wayback Machine.
Packer mentioned the modifications had been communicated to school admissions leaders, school and highschool academics as they occurred over the previous two years, in “1000’s of briefings” with School Board workers and in supplies given to AP readers.
“Our precedence has been speaking in regards to the standards-setting course of and rating modifications with the upper ed and AP communities … We do that as a matter of transparency and precept,” he mentioned.
However many AP academics and admissions professionals are solely simply changing into conscious of the modifications and have mentioned they really feel blindsided by the late discover. In non-public Fb teams for AP highschool academics that Inside Greater Ed was given entry to, instructors reacted with a mixture of confusion and shock to the information. Some indicated they’d been vaguely conscious of modifications in scoring over the previous few years, however many had been nonplussed by the main points.
“I’m a highschool trainer. I’m at these conferences and briefings they provide; I do know many different AP academics who’ve been, too,” Moscatiello mentioned. “We knew typically that AP exams can be recalibrated, however nearly all of us are stunned by this new methodology.”
Wednesday was the beginning of the annual AP convention in Las Vegas. Packer informed Inside Greater Ed he wasn’t certain he wanted to deal with the rating modifications; he believes the School Board has been clear with greater ed leaders and highschool academics and is much less nervous about informing these within the test-prep enterprise. In addition to, he has extra pressing information to share, just like the AP’s impending digitization, which he mentioned he deliberate to announce in his opening plenary at present.
Moscatiello, the highschool counselor, can be attending the convention, the place he’ll current a panel on AI in Superior Placement. He mentioned he’s gotten such an outpouring of curiosity within the new AP scoring course of that he plans to commit a part of the session to discussing it.
“We weren’t given sufficient readability about what is going to find yourself altering how tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in faculty credit score is awarded yearly,” he mentioned. “Hopefully that can change quickly.”
