Montgomery County data fails the test

The Washington Post: Letter to the Editor - Montgomery v. Fairfax You do the math

The Dec. 5 Metro article "Montgomery trumpets AP data" quoted schools Superintendent Jerry D. Weast as saying his county's minority students outperformed Fairfax County's because "the number of passing AP scores among African American and Hispanic students in Montgomery - 3,235 - was higher than the total number of those students who took AP tests at all in Fairfax - 1,746."

To accurately compare minority students' Advanced Placement test performance in the two counties, we would need to know how many minority students took AP tests in Montgomery or the total number of passing AP scores among minority students in Fairfax...

...I suggest that Montgomery County mandate a course in statistics, preferably an Advanced Placement course, as a prerequisite for high school graduation.

Sara PacquÃ-Margolis, McLean