College Board: More Georgia students try, and succeed, with AP classes

Yet when he became a senior this fall, Cole, 17, signed up for AP physics, calculus and economics, and will add AP government next semester.

His choice of that many AP classes isn’t typical, yet he reflects a trend. Participation in AP classes and performance on AP exams have roughly doubled over the past decade in Georgia, according to the College Board, which administers the program.

“Georgia’s consistently been a leader,” said Zach Goldberg, a spokesman for the organization.

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In most Georgia schools, a course load like Cole’s would be unusual. But not so much at Walton, where half of the more than 2,600 students chose to take at least one AP exam last spring after taking an AP course.

New results released by the College Board show the school not only had more test takers than any other in the state, but it also had the most tests taken and the highest proportion with a passing score, 89 percent.

About half the exams taken in Georgia got a passing score, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of available data from the Georgia Department of Education.

Students who take AP courses get a college-level challenge. In many cases, passing the voluntary, end-of-course exam can also earn credit for a college class, allowing completion of a degree in less time and with less money.

AP classes are typically taken by juniors and seniors, but at Walton, in northeast Cobb County, even freshmen get a chance. The school’s staff starts meeting parents in middle school to explain the program and get them ready.

Principal Judy McNeill attributes the participation and test scores to a culture of high expectation — and to demanding parents.

“We are in a community where the parents know how important education is, and they know how competitive it is for admissions to college,” she said.

The school opened in 1976 when IBM was establishing a regional headquarters nearby. Ever since, it’s been sought out by white-collar parents, especially corporate “relos” transferred to Georgia by their companies.

Homes are more expensive in the attendance zone, and buyers will sacrifice on size and quality to live there, said Joel Roberts, a Realtor. He said a four-bedroom house typically sells for $450,000 to $500,000 — at least 30 percent more than surrounding areas in Cobb County.

“It’s mostly people who either can’t or don’t want to pay for a private school, but they want a private school-quality education,” he said.

Susan Corley, Cole’s mom, said she and her husband chose to live in the Walton zone when they moved to Georgia for his architecture job five years ago on what she calls their “corporate tour of America.”

“It was based totally on schools,” she said, adding that she still marvels at the way Cole’s sister flogged herself with 11 AP courses in high school. The college credit she earned gave her the freedom to take courses out of interest and curiosity while searching for a major at Ohio State University.

“It really helped prepare her for the rigor,” Corley added.

Most parents at Walton are financially stable. Just 6 percent of students in the last school year came from homes with an income low enough to qualify for free or reduced-price school meals. Lower poverty was typical of Georgia schools with high AP exam pass rates.

Schools with high poverty tended to score lower. At Martin Luther King, Jr. High in DeKalb County, for instance, 152 students took 194 exams, and only five of the tests got a passing score. The poverty rate at the school was 73 percent.

College Board acknowledges poverty is an obstacle but notes that Georgia has made gains with low-income students. A decade ago, just 2.4 percent of juniors and seniors who passed an AP test were from low-income households. By last spring, it was 18.3 percent.