Important Changes: 2009-10
The College Board is committed to supporting college-level world language and computer science studies in secondary schools. In the next several years we will significantly increase our investment in support of world language and computer science programs in the following ways:
- Providing AP® teachers with downloadable embedded assessments for measuring students' knowledge, skills and abilities throughout the AP course, giving teachers much more information about students' strengths and weaknesses before exam day.
- Providing AP teachers with downloadable curriculum modules so that they have college-level materials for delivering key concepts.
- Providing AP teachers with access to student AP Exam score reports online.
- Convening college professors to raise awareness of the quality of AP teachers and students and to enhance existing credit/placement policies.
In addition, in partnership with colleges, universities, secondary schools and disciplinary associations, the College Board is working to ensure that these programs maintain alignment with current advances and scholarship in their disciplines.
However, as we significantly scale up our support for AP Computer Science and world language and culture teachers, we cannot continue to offer two separate courses and exams in several subjects. Therefore, the AP French Literature, AP Latin Literature and AP Computer Science AB courses and exams will be discontinued following the May 2009 exam administration. Our intensified commitment to the remaining AP Latin, AP French and AP Computer Science programs will ensure that these courses continue to provide the rigorous, college-level academic experience needed by advanced students. Our commitment will also ensure that the teachers of these subjects will be supported by an increased array of curricular resources and professional development opportunities.
We are also making changes to AP Italian. The Board of Trustees of the College Board originally approved a significant investment to support AP Italian's first three years; however, the overall low levels of interest and participation among schools, teachers and students have necessitated that the College Board significantly exceed that investment just to sustain AP Italian. The College Board's investment of resources, 400 percent higher than originally committed, demonstrates our passion for this program, but only allows us to offer AP Italian through the 2008-09 academic year. Therefore, the May 2009 AP Italian Language and Culture Exam is scheduled to be the final offering of this program.
We hope that between now and May 2009, external partners will come forward to supplement the College Board's investment and that we are able to announce a three-year extension of AP Italian through May 2012. We are hopeful that if this occurs, advocates of AP Italian will have time to raise awareness and participation among students to the level of other programs, such as AP German. External support, similar to that provided for AP Chinese and AP Japanese, would enable the College Board to fund the conversion of the AP Italian exam administration and scoring model to the Web-based model employed by those subject areas, and would also enable the College Board to perform the necessary maintenance and support of the program.
We will notify educators no later than May 1, 2009, if external support is forthcoming so that we can extend the AP Italian program into the three subsequent academic years (2009-10, 2010-11, and 2011-12), after which an assessment of teacher and student participation would need to occur.
While we are disappointed to be announcing that next year is the final year of the AP French Literature, AP Latin Literature, and AP Computer Science AB programs, and, potentially, the final year of AP Italian, we are eager to focus our resources on efforts that will provide a much greater degree of support for all AP teachers than ever before.