One thing is for sure, when you combine public school systems striving for good publicity regarding academics in the midst of plunging scores and a high-powered non-profit company such as College Board seeking profit, you're likely going to see some shenanigans with test scores.
And that is how it is in Maryland and other state public school systems as they attempt to overshadow poor math, reading, and writing test scores with Advanced Placement test scores. The State of Maryland, for example, in the midst of the most expensive education initiative in state history with the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, is desperate for good news. Scores on the current MCAP testing have been dismal.
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This shows that the Blueprint is an expensive failure. Maryland has spent roughly $5–6 billion (approximately $500 million a year) on the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future implementation so far (FY2021–FY2026), and total Blueprint costs are projected to reach about $19–20 billion by 2030 across state and local governments. By 2030, state costs alone will exceed $10.2 billion per year, which is $2.8 billion more than pre‑Blueprint law would have required.
The bill was passed by the general assembly in 2021, vetoed by then Governor Larry Hogan whose veto was overridden by the highly partisan Democrat controlled Maryland General Assembly. Despite warnings and concerns from local jurisdictions and county school systems over funding shortages, the initiative remains in place.
One retiring Democrat lawmaker from Prince George's County, broke ranks with state Dems in an interview with WBFF FOX 45 Baltimore and called for the Blueprint to be significantly altered:
Maryland Democratic Senator on Blueprint: 'Giving money to programs that don't work'
But, as public education systems do, Maryland is playing a shell game with tests, test scores, and student achievement.
The State's first reaction to poor scores is to implement a new test next year, the MSTAR or Maryland State Test of Academic Readiness. It is a test that will be more focused on student "readiness" than actual achievement. No doubt it will be a resounding success with high scores all around as benchmarks and standards will be conveniently lowered like they have been with other state tests.
But, to protect them this year, local systems and establishment candidates are touting the increase in Advanced Placement scores.
The trouble is, the AP tests are not what they used to be.
What is the History of the Advanced Placement TEsts?
Advanced Placement (AP) tests were created to solve a very specific post‑World War II problem in the 1950's: elite universities were worried that high‑achieving students were repeating material in college that they had alreacdy mastered in rigorous high‑school courses. The solution was to build a national system that let students take college‑level classes in high school and prove mastery through standardized exams.
The College Board allowed colleges to award credit or advanced placement and skipping of introductory courses for exceptional students who did well on AP exams.
During the 1970's and 90's, colleges increasingly trusted AP exams as objective measures of readiness and states began using AP to expand access to advanced coursework. AP became a signal of academic rigor in college admissions and research showed that AP participation correlated with higher education completion rates.
Along the way, the College Board realized that these tests, which cost takers $98 a test, were a gold mine as parents and families saw the assessments as symbols of excellence and a way to avoid paying for courses that their children may not need in college due to high scores on the tests. When subject selections increased and schools started paying the testing fees for students, participation became a billion-dollar business for College Board which also made money off of SAT college entrance exams to name a few.
While most schools traditionally required entrance requirements for advanced placement programs, most did away with those requirements in the 2000's in an attempt to entice more student participation. The testing pool grew larger but also less successful.
Remember, though, the more tests the more income for College Board. Here are the financials for College Board:
College Board - Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica
Success on the Advanced Placement tests is measured by a score range from 1 to 5; five being the top score. Scores are used to determine if a student will either get actual credit for a course or placement out of an entry level course in a student's major. Public colleges in Maryland are required by state law to accept AP test scores of 3 or higher for college credit.
However, in highly skilled subjects such as Calculus, most private colleges will still require students to take their calculus course even if a student scored a five on the corresponding AP test.
And, of course, school systems want to use AP scores as a bragging point for their systems. The problem is that these rigorous tests of the past are no longer what they were. In his article on The 74 Million, Kevin Mahnken traces the loosening of scoring standards on the 42 content AP tests:
Settling Scores: Experts Debate Why AP Performance Has Soared – The 74
The change came after a 2022 move by the College Board — the nonprofit education organization that owns and administers both AP and the SAT — to adopt a new scoring methodology intended to tamp down volatility in results. :
He explains the clear difference in scores under the new methodology:
The fraction of students rated 3 or higher in those subjects rose from 52% in 2021 to 71% in 2025, while those scoring a 4 or a 5 (interpreted by the College Board as as either “well-qualified” or “extremely well-qualified” for college coursework) increased from 28% to 45%. The progress was not obviously the consequence of a more selective pool of participants; in fact, the total number of test takers grew by over 10% during those four years.
The head of the College Board, Trevor Packer, defending the changes saying:
Prior panels had established artificially stringent standards that produced pass rates well below the historical AP standard.
However, when you lose someone such as Harvard Professor Paul Peterson, you might want to re-think what is going on. Peterson states:
The College Board wants to say, 'We haven't changed our standards, and we're the one reliable benchmark out there that everyone should pay attention to. But at the same time, they've modified the way they score the material.
Peterson said the shift might be seen as a reflection of grade inflation at the college level, adding that, after a long period during which that trend has accelerated, it could be seen as “appropriate” for a test taker to now earn a 4 with a performance that previously would have merited a 3.
In this interview with Peterson, John Moscatiello, founder of Marco Learning, made this astonishing statement:
The Education Exchange: AP Exams Have Shown a Measurable Decline in Rigor for Years - Education Next
PETERSON: Well, John, that’s all fascinating, but has the Advanced Placement tests been dumbed down then in the process?
MOSCATIELLO: So, I think the short answer is yes. The more precise scholarly definition is that the exams are measurably less rigorous than they once were. And that’s been my interest … that’s why I reached out to you when I saw this kerfuffle online. And I was just shell-shocked by Trevor Packer’s claim that the exams have not changed. They’ve changed in hundreds of ways, almost all of which make the exams easier. And in a way, when we think of that historical context, there’s almost no way you can go from a few thousand exams a year to 6.2 million exams per year for more than 3 million students without there being some sort of watering down of rigor.
The interview continues:
PETERSON: I just love one passage in a paper you shared with me, which is taken from Shakespeare’s King Lear. I’m not a Shakespeare actor, I confess, but let me just quote a couple lines here. “Through tattered clothes small vices do appear. / Riches and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold.” Now, that’s a very contemporary passage. That’s a passage for our time. This is about billionaires and trillionaires and ordinary people. It is the affordability question we talk about every day. Do we have questions like that on the Advanced Placement test today?
MOSCATIELLO: No, the passage you’re reading from is from the very AP English Language exam I took as a junior in high school in the year 2000. You have to imagine me, 17 years old, hunched over a piece of paper, having to arm wrestle that passage from King Lear to figure out what does it mean to plate sin with gold? And what does … the prompt was about the relationship between wealth and justice. Today’s prompts are about selfies. They’re about the word “overrated.” They’re about perfectionism. They have the advantage of being relevant. Maybe they reflect a shift in college work. Maybe people are spending less time on Shakespeare and more time on selfies. But there is a gap between the year 2000, when I took the exam, and the exam today. No, they would never put a question like that on today’s exam.
One of the biggest changes outside of content is that the stringent scoring of student responses has been eased, using college professors from all levels of college instruction. The more scorers, the more the scoring requirements are eased.
FORBES Magazine takes the academic rigor argument a bit further as they talk about the business model of the non-profit College Board:
Is The College Board Truly A Nonprofit Or A $1.6 Billion Testing Monopoly?
In an explanation of the College Board financial model, Forbes contributor Scott White writes:
Since its inception, cumulative membership dues pales next to the billions reaped from SATs and AP exams since 1990. This reliance on testing revenue has reshaped the organization's priorities, transforming it from a collaborative membership alliance into a de facto corporate entity with a testing monopoly.
The article goes on to state:
The Advanced Placement program embodies the College Board’s contradictions. While studies show AP courses improve college readiness for underserved students, barriers persist. Exams cost $99 each—a burden for low-income districts—and recent recalibrating of test scores have sparked concerns about score inflation. “Do the changes in performance mean that students are more qualified, or that the tests are easier?,” notes Jon Boeckenstedt, former Vice Provost for Admissions at Oregon State University.
School districts not only provide instruction in preparation for the tests, they also provide class time and teacher hours to administer and proctor the tests. Some teachers are paid extra for these duties, but many districts keep whatever extra pay a teacher may get for the chore.
Again, White's article in Forbes points out writes:
New America notes that the College Board spends millions each year to lobby state and federal representatives to maintain their market position. This decisions aligns with, according to Pro Publica, CEO David Coleman’s over $2.5 million compensation package—triple the average for nonprofit leaders—raising questions about whom the organization truly serves.
It's possible that the College Board, while promoting and lobbying for the SAT tests, is also using AP tests to bolster their standing in the U.S. testing market as they compete with other tests such as the ACT for the college entrance/assessment landscape.
Talbot Dems Use "Dumbed Down" AP Scores as election tool
This brings us back to the school systems who are now touting improved Advanced Placement exams as an example of how public education is improving in the United States. Here is a chart being used as a campaign poster in Talbot County, Maryland:
Compare these nearly impossible and certainly not plausible increases with the ones discussed in The 74 Million article.
As a parent of two children who took Advanced Placement exams in high school in 2006 and 2009, I remember how rigorous the courses were. Neither of them used those exams for college credit mainly because those exams, even back then, couldn't match the rigor of college Calculus and other courses.
This chart shows how colleges dealt with different AP scores in 2024:
Based on the CertiHomes dataset of 84,366 AP credit rules:
| Score | % of colleges awarding credit | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Score of 3 | 78% | Most colleges (especially public universities) grant credit for a 3. |
| Score of 4 | ≈18–20% (inferred from remaining share) | Many selective colleges require a 4 for credit. |
| Score of 5 | ≈2–4% (inferred) | Elite institutions often require a 5—or give placement only. |
Why the 4/5 percentages are inferred: The dataset explicitly states that 78% award credit at 3,
It's not our point to demean the achievement of some of our students who truly have achieved academic excellence; however, it is important that these students and their parents see the truth about these scores. School systems and political parties are being deceptive in their reporting in order to maintain political control while school board incumbents are exploiting these scores to campaign for re-election.
Other Informative resources:
Campus Reform | College Board nonprofit makes AP exams easier and more profitable
AP Credit Policies at 2,027 Colleges - Score Needed by Exam | GetInto.College
