Sixty percent of high schools/ in the United States/ now offer college-level work/ through Advanced Placement courses. Two times as many students/ take A.P. courses/ today/ compared to ten years ago.

The College Board/ administers the program, along with others/ including the SAT college entrance test. The non-profit organization/ has a new report out/ that marks the fiftieth anniversary of Advanced Placement.

The program/ now offers thirty-five courses/ in twenty subjects. These include art, biology, calculus and history, as well as language, music, physics and psychology. Classes/ prepare students/ to take A.P. exams. Last year, more than one million students/ worldwide/ took more than two million A.P. exams.

The results/ are in the form of a number/ from one to five. Five/ represents excellent college work. Three/ is average.

Most American colleges and universities/ give credit/ to students/ who receive a three or better/ on their A.P. exams. That means/ they can start with higher level college classes/ than students/ who did not do as well/ or did not take the tests.

Students/ can take an A.P. exam/ even without the coursework. Each test/ costs about eighty dollars.

Among minority students, Latinos/ are well-represented/ in Advanced Placement classes/ in many states. African-Americans/ are not. Black students/ are more than thirteen percent/ of the student population. But they are only six percent/ of those who take A.P. exams.

The College Board notes/ that studies/ support the value/ of the Advanced Placement program. These include the most recent Trends in International Math and Science Study. It shows/ that in two thousand three, the United States/ was near the bottom/ among sixteen countries/ on a calculus test. But the American students/ who had taken A.P. calculus/ did as well as the top students/ on the test.

President Bush/ wants to increase the number/ of A.P. math and science students. And he has proposed training seventy thousand more teachers/ over five years/ to teach them.

Three hundred eighty thousand American students/ currently take A.P. math and science exams. The goal/ is to increase that/ to one and one-half million/ by the year two thousand twelve.