Decatur High Named “AP Honor School”
Decatur Metro | February 11, 2011 | 2:18 pmFrom Principal Lauri McKain’s “Bloggin’ Bulldog” blog…
Georgia State School Superintendent Dr. John D. Barge announced AP Honor Schools, which included Decatur High School.
“Georgia continues to see positive trends in Advanced Placement – not only in the number of students taking the courses, but in the number of students having success,” Barge said. “Much of the progress we’re seeing in Georgia can be attributed to our AP Honor Schools.”
Decatur High School was named an AP Challenge School and an AP Stem Achievement School for its success last school year.
Advanced Placement Challenge Schools are schools with fewer than 900 students with students testing in the four core areas of English, Mathematics, Social Studies and Science. Advanced Placement Stem Achievement Schools are schools with students testing in at least two AP math courses and two AP science courses, and at least 40 percent of the exam scores on AP math and AP science exams are 3 or higher.
h/t: Dwellings via Twitter
This is great news. The key point is that students are passing the tests. For you WSJ readers out there, ther was a very good article about AP classes and tests in the US on Thursday. Unfortunately, the trend is that many more students are taking at least one AP course (something 35-40%), but that an alarmingly high and growing rate are failing the tests badly. The premise of the article is that the curriculum is often “dumbed down” since everyone is in the class and the primary impact is higher than expected GPAs given the 5 point scale for AP. Im grateful that Decatur is getting this right and I hope they continue to do so.
Decatur schools rock. It is one of the main reasons I moved here. My kids will all go to Decatur schools. Tell everyone you know, get them to move here, and keep Decatur great.