County students exceed national, state AP averages

Students of South Aiken High and Aiken High schools who took Advanced Placement exams in 2009-10 received college credit at a rate exceeding state and national averages.

A total of 221 South Aiken students took 463 exams and, on 277 of those tests, received scores of 3 to 5 - a 60 percent success rate. A score of 3 or better qualifies a student to get college credit for the course.

Aiken High had 165 students taking 338 tests. A total of 195 tests received the 3 to 5 grade for a 58 percent rate. The state average for 2010 was 55 percent, and the national average was 56 percent.

North Augusta High School had a 41 percent success rate on the exams but had significantly more students (262) taking a least one exam. Silver Bluff High was at 42 percent and Midland Valley High had a success rate of 38 percent. Both had just more than 50 students taking AP exams.

Ridge Spring-Monetta High and Wagener-Salley High had only a few students take the tests. Their results were not recorded because fewer than five successful tests were reported. At the Aiken Performing Arts Academy, two students received college credit on 5 of 8 tests.

AP classes are the most stringent offered at the high school level, said South Aiken Principal Bryan Skipper. He pointed out that the AP exam results reflect only on the college credit and have no impact on a student's final grade in the course.

"We encourage students to take these classes," said Skipper. "Given the number of tests we gave, 60 percent is not bad. Students exposed to these classes will be better prepared for college work."

South Aiken offers 13 AP classes to provide students with a broad range of courses, he said. To have 221 students involved in Advanced Placement "speaks volumes on the rigor and challenging curriculum we offer to our students," Skipper said.

Garen Cofer, the Aiken High principal, said the results this year are an improvement over the year before. The school district, he said, has been focusing on classroom rigor and holding teachers and students accountable.

"With that emphasis, I'm happy we're going in the right direction," said Cofer. "But we want to improve on the number of kids taking AP classes. We have to do a better job of exposing more kids to those kinds of opportunities."

Skipper plans to meet with his South Aiken teachers next month to discuss recommendations for next year's class assignments. He wants to target, in particular, those students who weren't identified as high achievers when they enrolled as freshmen, but have demonstrated since then they can handle more challenging work.

"For some of them, it may depend of what they've done in a subject area," Skipper said. "They might take AP science, but not AP history or English."

On Wednesday, the State Department of Education announced that South Aiken had received a summa cum laude rating for its improvement on the ACT college entrance exam. The school also got a cum laude grade for its SAT performance. Those results have a connection to the AP classes.

"When students take challenging courses and curriculum, they perform better on these types of tests," Skipper said. "There's definitely a correlation between that."

Contact Rob Novit at rnovit@aikenstandard.com.