Maryland Ranks #1 in College Board’s AP Report

Conduit Street
by Robin Clark

Maryland is No. 1 in the nation in the percentage of graduates who have passed at least one Advanced Placement exam, according to a report released Tuesday by the College Board. As described by the College Board,

Since 2003, there has been a 7.9 point increase in the percentage of U.S. public high school graduates scoring a 3 or higher on an AP Exam, with 17 states exceeding the national average for this percentage change. Once again, Maryland led all other states in the percentage of its public high school graduates scoring a 3 or higher on an AP Exam.

The Baltimore Sun describes one possible reason for Maryland’s consistent success in this category,

Maryland’s No. 1 ranking comes in part because so many students take the courses and exams. Nearly half of all Maryland graduates are taking the exams — about 47 percent. Far more than half of graduates will have taken a class, though about 20 percent take the courses and never sit for the exams.

Charles County, Maryland showed a particularly steep increase in passing AP scores over the past five years, as reported in The Sun, 

To celebrate the news, Gov. Martin O’Malley held a video conference Tuesday with AP students from two Charles County high schools, a district that saw a 20 percent increase in scores of 3, which is passing, or higher since 2009.

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