2 Washington High Schools Rise to Top 4% in US
Two high schools in Washington state that participated in the Advanced Placement® Incentive Program have made Newsweek’s 2009 list of the Top 1,500 U.S. high schools. The ranking is based on an index score calculated by dividing the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge exams taken in 2008 by all students at the school by the number of graduating seniors. Pasco High School was ranked 881st with an index of 1.67 and 16 percent of its graduating seniors having passed an AP or IB exam. Blaine High School followed closely at number 975, with an index of 1.569 and 27 percent of graduates passing an AP® or IB exam. This puts both schools in the top 4 percent nationally, which is a long way from where they started a few years ago.
Pasco High School is part of a district located along the Columbia River in central Washington near the Oregon border. With a 67 percent free or reduced-price lunch participation rate, it is one of the state’s largest four-year high schools, with more than 3,000 students, two-thirds of whom are Hispanic. With the help of APIP, Pasco schools doubled both AP yearlong course enrollments and the number of teachers who had taken qualified AP trainings. Pasco has focused on building and coordinating curriculum between the middle schools and high school by supporting Vertical Teams of teachers in language arts, math and science and, for the past three years, has implemented SpringBoard® English-Language Arts. The school pays for all students’ AP exams, and is working with the Hispanic Action Team to develop support for Hispanic families and engage more Hispanic students in AP programs. “I was pretty afraid of taking AP classes,” said a Pasco High sophomore and immigrant from Mexico. “I was pretty afraid of college, but, if you take an AP class, you find anyone can work hard and do it.”
Blaine High School is in a rural town in northern Washington along the Canadian border. With a district enrollment of about 2,300 students, Blaine provides 45.7 percent of its students with federally subsidized lunches, and 84 percent of students receiving subsidized lunches are white. The largest minority group is Hispanic, composing only about 7 percent of the student body. While participating in APIP, the district’s enrollment in AP courses increased by more than 829 percent — from 80 in 2003-04 to 743 in 2005-06 — and the number of qualified AP instructors nearly tripled. The district worked on two aspects of its AP program: building a schedule that included more Pre-AP® and AP courses, and publicizing the growing AP program to community members and students’ families. The district’s AP program has been successful thanks to the grassroots efforts of both teachers and student leaders, who encourage their peers to enroll in AP courses.
“Washington State has seen tremendous growth in the Advanced Placement Incentive Program over the last decade,” said Kathleen Plato, former supervisor of Washington’s Advanced Placement Program®. “Three advanced placement incentive grants have helped support the great work of AP teachers and local school districts as Washington AP exam numbers have quadrupled and the number of students scoring threes, fours and fives on those exams has also increased. State-level data also shows an increase in the number of minority students in AP programs, helping more students prepare for college. We are particularly pleased that the outreach efforts to rural school districts have resulted in the equally strong growth in AP in Washington’s small schools and districts.”
A Note from Western Region VP Al Mijares
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 VP Al Mijares |
I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Clark County School District on its enduring commitment to providing college and career readiness pathways for all students. On Nov. 17, Sandra Williams-Hamp, WRO’s senior director of K–12, presented data for this Las Vegas, Nev., district. The district made tremendous gains in Advanced Placement Program® (AP®) participation and performance in recent years. Clark County’s AP participation has increased 81 percent since 2004. The district participated in the PSAT/NMSQT® Early Participation Program for all 10th-graders in 2004, resulting in a nearly 700 percent increase in the number of 10th-graders taking the PSAT/NMSQT. Grants from the National Governors Association and AP Incentive Program (APIP) were critical in providing professional development for teachers, and establishing support programs for students and their parents to enhance and broaden rigorous course work and high expectations for all students in the Clark County district.
Nancy Potter, WRO’s educational manager for the state of Washington, hosted 20 rural districts from Skagit and Yakima valleys at a special College Board workshop devoted to highlighting the importance of the PSAT/NMSQT for staff, students and parents. The WRO salutes the University of Washington for sponsoring the PSAT/NMSQT for 15 local high schools and the University of Alaska for supporting three school districts as part of a comprehensive college readiness initiative. I’m also proud to note that two Washington high schools, which have been participating in APIP, were ranked in Newsweek’s 2009 Top 1500 high schools in the nation. Pasco and Blaine high schools were ranked based on a consideration of the number of AP or IB exams taken divided by the number of graduating seniors. You can read more about those high schools in a separate article on this page.
As college affordability and student aid continue to be key factors in access to higher education, equitable distribution of institutional funds will become even more critical for students, parents and higher education administrators. It’s more important than ever for financial aid professionals to ensure that the very limited institutional funds are targeted to the applicants whom colleges strive to assist. The College Board is sponsoring two free, online sessions designed to explore the effective use of CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE® and Institutional Methodology to help institutions meet their national and international enrollment goals. The sessions will be Dec. 10 and 15 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. PST. For more information, please contact Eddie Arteaga at earteaga@collegeboard.org.
In November, the Northern California PowerFAIDS® User Group covered direct loan processing in PowerFAIDS and also had a PowerFAIDS 15.0 release training. The PowerFAIDS team will be conducting free monthly WebEx demonstrations for Net Partner and Web Client. A Dec. 22 session will allow PowerFAIDS users to learn how Net Partner and Web Client can help financial aid administrators create content, tailor standard award elements, and disseminate information online to students and other campus staff. For more information, please contact Eddie Arteaga at earteaga@collegeboard.org.
Lastly, senior College Board staff met with WRO staff Nov. 11–12 in Los Angeles for a California Summit to evaluate the state’s educational challenges resulting from its poor economic forecast and rapid demographic changes. It also gave us a chance to create strategies to ensure maximum educational opportunities for all students. Following the summit, staff engaged local education leaders in a roundtable discussion. Participants were Compton Unified School District’s superintendent, Fresno Unified School District’s superintendent and his executive director of accountability & improvement, Long Beach Unified School District’s superintendent and his special administrative assistant, Los Angeles Unified School District’s special assistant to the superintendent and the chief academic officer, Compton Community College District’s dean of student affairs, and California State University–Fresno’s president.
On behalf of the WRO staff, I want to wish each of you the warmest of holidays.
College Board Hosts Big 12 Schools for Boulder Education Policy Event
The College Board Advocacy group teamed up with staff members from the Midwestern, Southwestern and Western regional offices to host an event for the schools of the Big 12 in Boulder, Colo., Oct. 27–28. The program, “What the New Era of Education Reform Means for Higher Education,” immediately followed the annual meeting of admission, enrollment, financial aid, student services and other professionals from the Big 12 — a college athletic conference composed of 12 schools from Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. Attendees learned about the latest news from Capitol Hill on policy related to admission, financial aid and college completion, with a focus on how these developments can advance the participating institutions’ goals. College Board staff shared exclusive data for Big 12 institutions and facilitated a conversation on how these data could be used to advance enrollment and completion objectives of particular concern to Big 12 institutions.
After a welcome from Southwestern Regional Vice President Ann Wright, the group heard from Sandy Baum, College Board senior policy analyst and co-chair of the Rethinking Student Aid study group, who gave a talk titled “Rethinking Federal Financial Aid: Moving Closer to Meaningful Reform.” David Longanecker, president of WICHE and former Clinton administration undersecretary of education, spoke about demographics and shared insights into President Obama’s $2.5-billion College Access and Completion Innovation Fund and stimulus spending. A major part of the event involved Big 12 data presentations by Arthur Doyle, College Board vice president, and Julie Esau and Leslie Larocca, both senior directors for higher education in the Southwestern and Midwestern regions, respectively. For the first time, university attendees were able to view data across the conference along with information specific to their schools.
“We were pleased to have representatives from most Big 12 universities at this gathering,” said Wright. “All of the attendees stated their appreciation for such a high-level conference, saying also that they had no idea that the College Board had so many valuable programs.”
The next morning, Bruce Walker, vice provost for special projects at The University of Texas at Austin and head of the College Board’s Task Force on Admissions in the 21st Century, offered an update on his group’s work, which included a video clip from the movie Apollo 13 that demonstrated how to deal with a crisis using only the tools you have on the table — equating the space crisis with the current crisis in admission and financial aid. “The symposium was excellent and we look forward to participating in more regional forums with the College Board,” said attendee Christy Crenshaw, director of undergraduate admissions at Oklahoma State University. “I think all of our admission counselors as well as our admission management team will benefit greatly.”
College Board Members Elect New Trustees from the Western Region
At the Annual Meeting of the Members of the College Board, which took place Oct. 23 at Forum 2009, seven Trustees were elected to the 31-member governing board of the association. In addition, two Trustees who were appointed by regional assemblies last winter were installed.
Janina Montero, vice chancellor of student affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles, was elected to a four-year term as Trustee and will serve from 2009 to 2013. Carlos Garcia, superintendent of San Francisco Unified School District, was elected to a three-year term from 2009 to 2012.
The College Board’s Trustees are responsible for assisting in legal and fiduciary decisions; approving the mission, strategic goals and objectives of the organization; establishing policies; and advising those responsible for the management of the organization. The Board of Trustees administers the not-for-profit association with guidance from three national assemblies and six regional assemblies. Member institutions appoint a delegate to each of the three national assemblies — the Academic Assembly, the College Scholarship Service Assembly, and the Guidance and Admission Assembly. Each national assembly provides the College Board with guidance on the issues and College Board activities related to the professional areas represented.
Events & Workshops
Click here to see events and workshops in the Western Region.
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Be part of the dialogue that is helping shape change nationwide in education — and join your colleagues for an engaging program that will offer powerful solutions that you can apply to your school, your educational community and your own students.
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