The Talawanda School District is one of 539 districts across 44 of the 50 states in the U.S. and Canada being honored by the College Board with placement on the third annual AP District Honor Roll for simultaneously increasing access to Advanced Placement course work while increasing the percentage of students earning scores of 3 or higher on AP Exams.

Achieving both of these goals is the ideal scenario for a district’s AP program because it indicates that the district is successfully identifying motivated, academically prepared students who are likely to benefit most from rigorous AP course work.

Since 2010, Talawanda has increased the number of students participating in AP while improving the percentage of students earning AP Exam scores of 3 or higher.

More than 90 percent of colleges and universities across the U.S. offer college credit, advanced placement or both for a score of 3 or above on an AP Exam — which potentially can save students and their families thousands of dollars in college tuition.

Data shows that among African-American, Hispanic and Native American students with a high degree of readiness for AP, only about half of students are participating, often because their school does not yet offer the AP course.

“We applaud the extraordinary efforts of the devoted teachers and administrators in the Talawanda School District

district, who are fostering rigorous work worth doing,” said College Board President David Coleman. “These educators have not only expanded student access to AP course work, but they have enabled more of their students to achieve on a college level — which is helping to create a strong college-going culture.”

Many districts are experimenting with a variety of initiatives and strategies to determine how to expand access and improve student performance simultaneously.

“There has been a great victory among educators who have believed that a more diverse population could indeed succeed in AP courses,” said Trevor Packer, the College Board’s senior vice president of the Advanced Placement Program. “In 2012, AP scores were higher than they’d been since 2004, when 1 million fewer students were being given access. These outcomes are a powerful testament to educators’ belief that many more students were indeed ready and waiting for the sort of rigor that would prepare them for what they would encounter in college.

“While we recognize that there is still much work to be done to prepare students for college, I find myself inspired daily by what they are achieving,” he said.

Inclusion on the AP District Honor Roll is based on the examination of three years of AP data, 2010- 12, for the following criteria:

• Districts must increase participation and access to AP by at least 4 percent in large districts, at least 6 percent in medium districts and at least 11 percent in small districts.

• Districts must ensure that the percentage of African American, Hispanic/Latino and American Indian/Alaska Native students taking AP Exams did not decrease by more than 5 percent for large and medium districts or by more than 10 percent for small districts.

• Districts must improve performance levels when comparing the percentage of students in 2012 scoring a 3 or higher to those in 2010, unless the district has already attained a performance level in which more than 70 percent of the AP students are scoring a 3 or higher.