Advanced Placement Results - Georgia

More than 15 percent of the public high school class of 2007 achieved at least one AP® Exam grade of 3 or higher—the score that is predictive of college success. This achievement represents a significant and consistent improvement since the class of 2002 when less than 12 percent of public school graduates attained this goal.

In its fourth annual "AP Report to the Nation," the College Board (the not-for-profit membership association that owns and administers the AP Program), focuses on educators' quantifiable successes in helping a wider segment of the nation's students gain access to and achieve success in college-level work. Of the estimated 2.8 million students who graduated from U.S. public schools in 2007, almost 426,000 (15.2 percent) earned an AP Exam grade of at least a 3 on one or more AP Exams during their high school tenure, the report documents. This is up from 14.7 percent in 2006 and 11.7 percent in 2002.

Earning a 3 or higher on an AP Exam is one of "the very best predictors of college performance," with AP students earning higher college grades and graduating from college at higher rates than otherwise similar peers in control groups, according to recent reports from researchers.

15.3 percent of Georgia's 2007 High School Seniors got a 3, 4 or 5 on at least one AP exam during their high school years. That puts Georgia at 15th in the nation.

Also, the report shows that 9.4 percent of Georgia's African-American high school seniors scored a 3 or higher on at least one AP exam. This was third highest in the nation.

Georgia students took a total of 67,739 AP exams in 2006-2007, an increase of over 8,000 exams from the previous year. Since 2003, the number of exams taken has almost doubled.

Despite the dramatic growth in participation, the percentage of exams receiving a score of 3 or higher has remained fairly steady, between 53 and 57 percent.

While Georgia continues to see strong growth in participation, there are still many students who are not taking advantage of AP classes. The College Board report shows that thousands of Georgia students that could successfully take AP classes are not doing so.

State Reports:

http://professionals.collegeboard.com/data-reports-research/ap/nation

Full report:

http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/ap-report-to-the-nation-2008.pdf

Georgia Report:

http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/Georgia-AP-Report-2008.pdf

Georgia's Top Two Youth Volunteers Selected in 13th Annual National Awards Program

Alpharetta and McDonough students earn $1,000 awards, engraved medallions and trip to nation’s capital

Honors also bestowed on other top youth volunteers in Georgia

Mihir Chaudhary, 17, of Alpharetta and Courtney Smits, 11, of McDonough were named Georgia's top two youth volunteers for 2008 by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, a nationwide program honoring young people for outstanding acts of volunteerism. The awards program, now in its 13th year, is conducted by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP).

Mihir was nominated by Alpharetta High School in Alpharetta, and Courtney was nominated by Union Grove Middle School in McDonough. As State Honorees, each will receive $1,000, an engraved silver medallion, and an all-expense-paid trip in early May to Washington, D.C., where they will join the top two honorees – one middle level and one high school youth – from each of the other states and the District of Columbia for several days of national recognition events. Ten of them will be named America’s top youth volunteers for 2008 at that time.

Mihir, a senior at Alpharetta High School, formed a club at his school to raise money to help rebuild, refurbish and re-supply war-ravaged schools in northern Uganda. “I became involved in this activity after witnessing the brutal treatment of the children of northern Uganda in a poignant documentary by the nonprofit international organization, Invisible Children,” Mihir said. He was particularly bothered by the fact that many Ugandan children are abducted and forced to fight as soldiers. “My access to flowing water, hot food and a soft bed have made the deficiencies of the northern Ugandan children all the more poignant,” he said.

After receiving permission from school administrators, Mihir formed a partnership with the Awere Secondary School in Gulu, Uganda. He then recruited teen volunteers and planned a series of fund-raisers, including dodgeball tournaments, penny collection jars, and candy sales. Mihir also solicited donations from businesses and other organizations. So far, Mihir’s Schools for Schools club has raised $4,500 to provide clean water, teacher training and new books for disadvantaged Ugandan students attending the Awere Secondary School. “My hope is that every dollar earned will be a step in educating a new leader for future generations of northern Ugandans,” Mihir said.

Courtney, a sixth-grader at Union Grove Middle School, conceived a campaign to support returning servicemen and women who need prosthetics or prosthetic care, and to raise public awareness of the issues faced by these “wounded warriors.” Courtney, whose father and stepfather are both veterans with prosthetics, wanted to do something for all soldiers who sustain serious injury in the line of duty. “I felt it was important to bring awareness and support to these heroes who fight for our freedoms as silent warriors, and sacrifice so much of themselves each and every day,” Courtney said.

With help from her mother and a friend, Courtney designed a Web site at www.queensforcourage.com to solicit donations, and began planning a series of fund-raising events, including a golf tournament, a family luncheon, and a beauty pageant. The proceeds have gone to the American Legion’s Heroes to Hometowns program, which establishes a support network and coordinates resources for severely injured service members returning home, and to Sew Much Comfort, which designs and makes adaptable clothing for service members with prosthetics. “What I can do will never compare to what they have sacrificed, but I will show them that I am appreciative of all they do to protect the freedoms I have every day,” Courtney said.

In addition, the program judges recognized six other Georgia students as Distinguished Finalists for their impressive community service activities. Each will receive an engraved bronze medallion:

Yihe Dong, 17, of Athens, a senior at Cedar Shoals High School, created a service organization dedicated to mobilizing young people to battle poverty in their community. Yihe has recruited volunteers from local high schools to form a steering committee, taken steps to educate others about poverty, and planned peer-tutoring and peer-counseling programs for disadvantaged students.

Emily Dreschel, 17, of Canton, a senior at Cherokee High School, developed a weekly mentoring program three years ago for at-risk students at a local elementary school. Since then, the number of high school students recruited by Emily to be mentors in her program has grown from 10 to 25.

Caterina Li, 17, of Duluth, a senior at Duluth High School, helped start “Crossroads of Hope,” a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing educational funding for underprivileged children in rural China. The organization’s fund-raising efforts so far have generated more than $31,000 to provide student scholarships, books, newspapers and school supplies.

Katryna McCann, 17, of Richmond Hill, a senior at Richmond Hill High School and a member of the Savannah Red Cross, helped found and lead the Richmond Hill Red Cross Youth Group. With assistance from Red Cross officials, Katryna recruited youth members; helped coordinate disaster preparedness training for them; and organized blood drives, a water safety fair, a clothing drive, and other activities to support the mission of the American Red Cross.

Taylor Mullinax, 14, of Rock Spring, a freshman at Gordon Lee High School in Chickamauga, has made 300 autographable “chemo hats” for children undergoing treatment for cancer at hospitals in Chattanooga, Atlanta and New York City. She purchases fabric and autograph markers with allowance and birthday money, cuts patterns, sews the hats, and bags each one with a personal note, before delivering them to young patients.

Laura White, 17, of Alpharetta, a senior at Northview High School in Duluth, created a program that has provided swimming and water safety lessons to 115 disadvantaged children in the Atlanta area. Laura, a former competitive swimmer, worked with a local swim club and an organization serving needy children to arrange the lessons, and is now planning to introduce her “Wild and Water” program in Savannah and New Orleans.

Georgia District Cuts Maintenance Time, Costs

Web-Based Library Management System Improves Service While Helping Eliminate 30 Servers

For one large school district in Georgia, improving library service has meant eliminating library servers.

For the Douglas County School System, based in Douglasville, GA, adopting Destiny Library Manager™ from Follett Software Company has been part of a move to save money and time on district network maintenance. Douglas County Schools began using the centralized web-based library management system in its 30 schools at the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year.

“We were previously maintaining servers at 30 different locations in the district,” said Todd Hindmon, Director of Technology for Douglas County Schools. “We’ve had an active program of consolidating servers at the district office, and Destiny will help with that,” Hindmon said.

With the district’s previous site-based library management system, the simple act of installing updates would be a big drain on district technology staff, Hindmon explained. “We would have probably had four or five people out doing upgrades, and each one would take 30 minutes to an hour per server,” Hindmon said. “When you added it all up, it came to about 30 hours of staff time every time we did an update.”

Under Destiny, however, the catalogs of all district libraries are maintained on a single server, and are accessed at the schools via the web. “Having Destiny right in the district data center where the engineers are allows us to give better support to schools, and we’re not having to spend 30 to 45 minutes driving out to fix problems.”

Hindmon said that once staff and students in schools are comfortable using Destiny, the district will make it available for its 25,000 students, as well as parents and staff, to log in from home or anywhere they have web access. In the meantime, media specialists are responding positively to the new system, Hindmon said. “Media specialists are now able to look at each other’s media centers and see how they have things set up, and they’ve found that really helpful. One media specialist is using Destiny to mentor a new colleague at a different school, something that wouldn’t have been possible before,” Hindmon said.