Gov. O'Malley proposes waiving AP exam fee - wtop.com
BALTIMORE - Gov. Martin O'Malley wants to waive the $86 fee per subject for Advanced Placement tests in Maryland.
The proposal is part of an initiative O'Malley made public on Tuesday called "AP Access and Success."
Montgomery would get bulk of AP exam funding | Washington Examiner
Advanced Placement: O'Malley wants to waive Advanced Placement test fees - baltimoresun.com
From the Press Release:
...Many other states have policies to increase AP access and success. In Arkansas, Florida, and Kentucky, for example, the State covers the entire AP exam fee, subject to appropriations. The State of Georgia covers a student's first AP exam in full and pays for all high school sophomores to take the PSAT/NMSQT. Indiana covers the cost of all science and math AP exams in addition to the PSAT/NMSQT for all high school sophomores. The State of Maine mandates that all high school sophomores take the PSAT and covers the cost of the testing.
The question for Montgomery County students would be: Would MCPS still be charging late fees and other "processing" charges on AP exams to MCPS students if the state were to pick up the AP exam fee?
Would an AP exam ever be free for MCPS students? The AP organization doesn't charge the late fees that some MCPS high schools assess students, but that never stopped MCPS high schools from charging those fees anyway!
In addition, would the state pay the local schools their "cut" of the AP exam fee? Under the current system local schools get to keep a portion of the AP exam fee as an "administration fee." These funds go into the local school accounts, also known as slush funds, for whatever the principal desires. MCPS principals would lose out on this funding if the state paid the AP fee directly.
The "cut" that schools get are not necessarily used for nefarious purposes as this post insinuates. The "cut" is used to pay for people to proctor the AP exams. I hope the state plans to pay for these proctors too otherwise this will be a cost MCPS will have to pick up.
ReplyDelete@ anonymous: Prove it.
ReplyDeleteTeachers are already getting paid from the MCPS Operating Budget taxpayer funds.
Make the budget of the local high schools PUBLIC and prove that AP proctors are hired using AP funds.
Let's see the check registers for local MCPS high schools. LOTS of other school systems and governments across the country have embraced President Obama's call for transparency.
Why not MCPS?
@Janis Sartucci: It appears you incorrectly presume that teachers are used to proctor AP Exams. Guess again! AP exams are given during the school day when teachers are teaching. Schools have to hire outside help to proctor the exams. How do I know? I'm an AP teacher in an MCPS school.
ReplyDelete@ anonymous: You've got a problem. Local schools don't hire staff. Staffing funding comes from the MCPS Operating Budget. Local schools don't have budgets. The only funds local schools handle are IAF accounts - student funds.
ReplyDeleteIf you think you can trace where AP fees collected from students go, then please make those records public.
As an example, the College Board (runs AP exam program) doesn't charge a "late fee" as charged by MCPS schools. But some MCPS high schools have charged up to $100 in late fees! Where did that money go? We know it didn't go to the College Board.
Looking forward to your making these budget documents public.
Maybe some schools hired outside help (and then, as Janis points out, where did they get the funds to hire outside help?). But at the high school that my children attended, parent volunteers proctored the AP tests. Those parents were certainly not paid -- I was one of them.
ReplyDelete@ anonymous: Here's what transparency looks like. Thanks to Mr. Wilen (above commenter) we know that at Walter Johnson High School profits from AP exam fees was used to pay for other students to TAKE PSAT exams. (A totally different test.)
ReplyDeletehttp://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2010/01/ap-test-profit-funds-psat-tests-at.html
These profits from AP exams were clearly not used to pay for AP proctors.
Looking forward to your making these budget documents public.
As a teacher I have no way of making budget documents public. All I know is that at my school, AP exam fee $$ is used to hire people to proctor the exams.
ReplyDelete@ anonymous: Not true! You can walk right into your school's Business Office and request the documents! It's easy! It's called PUBLIC INFORMATION and you are entitled to it just like any other citizen. In fact, it's the law.
ReplyDeleteGo track down the documents that you claim will show your local school hiring staff from AP exam profits.
We'll be happy to post them to this blog.
I'll try to remember to do this when we return to school in August.
ReplyDelete