SouthernCollege-Bound Seniors 2011 - SRO
Found in Southern News
Sept. 2011
 |
More students in Southern Region states participated in the college-going process by taking the SAT® than ever before. Overall student participation grew in nine of the 10 states in the region.
Florida led the region in SAT participation growth, with the number of SAT takers up 7 percent in 2011 compared to 2010. Florida has seen a steady increase in the number of SAT takers since 2007, and experienced a significant bump this year because of the School District of Palm Beach County’s funding of an SAT School-Day initiative for all public school students in the class of 2011. This effort — which took place in April 2010 — brought many more students into the testing process.
Florida’s 2011 SAT takers also reflected the diversity of the state: 51 percent of the SAT takers in this year’s high school graduating class were minority students, up from 44 percent in 2007. Florida wasn’t the only state in the region to reflect the College Board’s commitment to expanding access and equity. Graduating high school seniors in the states of Alabama, South Carolina and Virginia represent the most diverse groups of SAT takers in history.
In addition to Virginia’s graduating seniors representing the most diverse group in state history, overall SAT participation also broke previous state records, with 71 percent of the Virginia class of 2011 participating in the college-going process by taking the SAT. And in the state of North Carolina, 67 percent of the class of 2011 took the SAT, representing a 10 percent increase in the number of overall test-takers since 2007.
Data confirm that completing a core curriculum, enrolling in honors and AP® courses, and taking SAT Subject Tests™ in science and mathematics subjects not only enhance student performance on the SAT but also serve as valid predictors of college success. Students in the high school graduating class of 2011 who reported completing a core curriculum received a combined SAT score that was, on average, 143 points higher than those who did not complete a core curriculum.
A Note from Southern Region VP Jenny Krugman
Found in Southern News
Apr. 2010
 |
VP Jenny Krugman
|
Despite the best efforts of our nation’s most ardent professionals, all is not fair in college access, admission and completion. Our Web pages explain why we at the College Board are helping institutions rethink student aid: “Financial barriers prevent many qualified low- and moderate-income high school graduates from enrolling in four-year colleges.
A Note From Southern Region VP Jenny Krugman - 02-11
Found in Southern News
Dec. 2010
 |
VP Jenny Krugman |
Dear Colleagues,
Today the College Board published The 7th Annual AP® Report to the Nation. This report reflects the highpoints achieved by students, schools, districts and universities that use AP as a key to academic success. Across the South, legions of secondary school and college and university leaders have AP stories to tell. These stories cut to the heart of why AP students achieve in college and beyond.
Members of our team in the Southern Region report student AP victories through the lens of our staffers’ own AP experiences. Here are four AP tales of success.
A Full School Movement
College Board colleague Debbie Shepard taught AP English Literature at Lincoln High School in Tallahassee, Fla. In the late 90s, Shepard’s students produced a wall mural in her classroom that highlighted the images and themes of Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. The mural is reproduced here — testimony to the critical thinking that legions of AP students engage in across the nation day after day.
Shepard reports on East Ridge High School in Lake County, Fla.:
“Nearly 3,000 students strong in grades 9–12, East Ridge serves its minority students (57 percent) and students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch (46 percent) with heavy doses of AP courses leading to noteworthy student achievement. By taking advantage of opportunities such as the College Board Florida Partnership, careful planning and collaboration, the school has experienced tremendous success in increasing both participation and performance in AP. Kim Jarvis, assistant principal for curriculum, credits the PSAT/NMSQT student identifying tool, AP Potential, as ‘a major contributor to students’ success.’”
Ramping Up Teacher Training
From Lynn Demmons, our leader in secondary school efforts in South Carolina, comes this report:
“The state continues to ensure that traditionally underserved students are part of the AP experience. In addition to state regulations requiring that teachers of AP courses receive endorsements to teach, the [South Carolina] State Department of Education, under the leadership of Rick Blanchard (and with the support of local leaders like Charleston County School District’s Denise Zacherl and Greenville County Schools’ Jane Snyder), is taking professional development one step further. The implementation of the SC AP Teacher Network provides a statewide mentoring model that allows teachers of AP courses to support their peers in Pre-AP and AP settings across the state. An annual AP Day honors AP educators and celebrates student achievement.”
As an AP Biology teacher, Demmons helped develop unique after-school and Saturday academic programs to prepare students for success in AP Biology. She also served as a professional development master teacher in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., and Broward County, Fla.
AP for the Prepared
The College Board’s Raphael Curtis was an AP Calculus teacher at Tara High School back home in Baton Rouge, La.. Still nearly a rookie teacher, Curtis became one of Tara’s AP leaders. The original tiny AP Calculus class was supported by the school’s visionary principal. Four students became 30 once Curtis recruited the high school quarterback. The conditions for building AP, says Curtis, are to “believe that it is possible for your students to do AP Calculus. Have the will to persevere, because roadblocks will arise. Be tenacious in recruiting students from middle schools, from athletic program, and from career-focused programs.”
Here is Curtis’s commentary on a school district that he serves:
“Since receiving an AP Incentive Program grant just before the start of the 2006-07 school year, the Calcasieu Parish School District in Louisiana has appreciably grown its districtwide AP program. The College Board has worked with the district’s leaders to create smaller learning communities that focus on supporting Pre-AP networks.”
Creating Support for the Teachers of Students Identified as Gifted
K–12 educational manager Becky Patterson says that when she taught math at Georgia State University, she could see a difference in achievement and attitude in the students entering with an AP background. Here is Patterson on the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s support for teachers in the AP realm:
“This past December, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction answered a call to action from a cadre of teachers working with students identified as gifted. Sneha Shah-Coltrane, a state consultant, created a teacher conference offering research-based strategies to help support gifted students in the AP classroom. Tracy and Jennifer Cross presented turnkey information on serving gifted students in the AP environment. Presentations from this conference are headed into the online listing of professional development opportunities offered by the North Carolina Virtual Public School.”
Highlighting four examples from among hundreds across the South, our regional team salutes these emblems of academic innovation in support of student achievement.
A Note From Southern Region VP Jenny Krugman - 03-11
Found in Southern News
Mar. 2011
 |
VP Jenny Krugman |
Morning snow dusted Atlanta as we opened our 2011 Southern Regional Forum in mid-February. Some of the highlights of our first day were commentaries by two of our marquee presenters — John Hunter, a master teacher working with fourth-graders; and Chris Farina, a filmmaker succeeding in capturing a great classroom’s magic.
Popcorn, lemonade and fresh coffee nourished our movie-going forum audience as keynote speaker Hunter, who is also a musician and composer, introduced the exploration of his “World Peace Game“ in Farina’s movie World Peace and Other 4th Grade Achievements. Hunter told the audience that he wanted his students to find the project so compelling that they could not stop thinking about it. He also wanted the game to stretch students well beyond their usual capacities.
North Carolina to Implement ACCUPLACER® at All Community Colleges
Found in Southern News
Apr. 2012
Community college students in North Carolina will benefit from the assessment, intervention and preparation tools that the College Board’s ACCUPLACER® program offers, thanks to new state agreements approved earlier this year.
Beginning next year, North Carolina will use ACCUPLACER as its single statewide diagnostic and placement test. More than 50 community colleges in the state will implement the customized assessment, which will include online interventional and preparation tools for students. The new systemic model will contribute to the state’s goals of increasing access to high-quality postsecondary education and maximizing student success.
A Note from Southern Region VP Jenny Krugman
Found in Southern News
May 2010
|
VP Jenny Krugman
|
Late April marked the imminent crush of AP® Exams, as well as two thought-provoking conferences here in the South: A Dream Deferred™: The Future of African American Education and the Major School Systems meeting.
Held over two days at Spelman and Morehouse colleges, the A Dream Deferred conference energized and inspired its 670 participants. College Board hosts Peter Negroni and Jim Montoya pointed to the “tuning fork” effect of this conference: one significant sound creates endless reverberations. They wrote: “Earlier this year, the College Board released a report on minority males in higher education: The Educational Crisis Facing Young Men of Color. The report and its action items were informed by a gathering held in 2008 at A Dream Deferred, and by extensive research on programs that are positively impacting black males in higher education.” One keynote speaker, Bryant Marks, took the mesmerized audience from Plato to rap and from Shakespeare to fades. Drawing on reams of research, Marks focused on the influence of racial stereotypes on academic performance and the psychological impact of the black college experience.
A Note from Southern Region VP Jenny Krugman
Found in Southern News
Apr. 2010
|
VP Jenny Krugman
|
Despite the best efforts of our nation’s most ardent professionals, all is not fair in college access, admission and completion. Our Web pages explain why we at the College Board are helping institutions rethink student aid: “Financial barriers prevent many qualified low- and moderate-income high school graduates from enrolling in four-year colleges.
A Note from Southern Region VP Jenny Krugman
Found in Southern News
Sept. 2010
|
VP Jenny Krugman
|
This issue of Connection has references to the SAT® score report being published this month. There are many threads in the Southern Region tying students to college readiness and completion, and the SAT is one key predictor of students’ college success. It is also at the core of the College Board’s college completion agenda.
In the South, increasing numbers of students are taking the SAT, and the population of test-takers is more diverse than ever. If we examine this diversity, we see many efforts in your states, districts and institutions that facilitate the promise of college for growing numbers of prepared students. In our organization, we have opened the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center. In my notes in subsequent issues of Connection, you can follow our journey through the center’s three priorities:
A Note from Southern Region VP Jenny Krugman - 09-12
Found in Southern News
Dec. 2012
 |
VP Jenny Krugman |
The Southern Regional team of the College Board is ready to welcome you to the Southern Regional Forum on Oct. 23–24, and we are busily preparing for your arrival in Miami. Our promise: weather in the 70s, perfect surf, and meetings that will stimulate, challenge and inspire.
This year, we invite you to a one-time-only link with Forum 2013, our international Forum event being held in Miami on Oct. 24–26. Our regional forum will feature our new Advanced Placement Program® (AP®) connection, with higher education, universities and colleges being at the core of AP’s importance.
The AP Program is at the center of our efforts to increase student achievement in secondary schools and to increase retention of students in higher education institutions. A look at AP’s success offers one of the many stories we will share at this year’s regional forum.
Access to and success in advanced-level courses, of which AP is one, are critical to building career and college success among our region’s high school graduates. Students who take AP courses and exams are more likely than their peers who don’t participate in AP to achieve college completion. From national studies, we learn that 45 percent of students who have taken one AP course and 61 percent of students who have taken two or more AP courses complete their bachelor’s degrees in four years or less (Camara, 2003.)
A closer disaggregated look shows that AP students who earn scores of 3, 4, or 5 on AP Exams increase their probability of college completion. The chart below reveals the details of this achievement advantage:
|
Student Demographic |
AP Score of 3, 4, 5 |
|
African American |
21% |
|
Hispanic |
27% |
|
White |
19% |
|
Low Income |
32% |
(Dougherty, Mellor and Juan, 2006)
Florida’s Zora Neale Hurston opens her 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, with this: “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.” So too does advanced academic planning for students produce wishes and dreams for our region’s young people. AP is among the key College Board tools at the foundation of those dreams. Please join us in October in Miami and learn more.
A Note from Southern Region VP Jenny Krugman - 03-12
Found in Southern News
Mar. 2012
|
VP Jenny Krugman |
Dear Colleagues,
October in Miami. Warm ocean breezes, crystalline beaches, and high-octane conversations and presentations with education leaders from every one of our 10 Southern states. The College Board issues a call: Join us at the Eden Roc Renaissance Miami Beach Oct. 23–24 for our annual regional forum. Stay an extra couple of days and enjoy the national event, Forum 2012.
Our hosts, the Southern Regional Council, led by Chair Tina McEntire, Secretary Gil Villanueva and Chair-elect Debbie Carrington, will greet you and promote stimulating, practical, provocative and success-based conversations. Want best practices in admission and enrollment? In financial aid? In K–12 education? In education policy? We’ve got just that.
More Articles...
Page 1 of 9
