Trevor Packer is the current head of the
Advanced Placement
Advanced Placement (AP) is a program in the United States and Canada created by the College Board which offers college-level curricula and examinations to high school students. American colleges and universities may grant placement and course ...
(AP) Program and the Senior Vice President of Advanced Placement and Instruction at the
College Board
The College Board is an American nonprofit organization that was formed in December 1899 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) to expand access to higher education. While the College Board is not an association of colleges, it runs a ...
.
Personal life
Packer was born in
Provo,
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
, the first of nine children to Shirlee Packer and Rand Packer. He was raised a member of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian Christian church that considers itself to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. The c ...
. At age 19, he served as a
missionary
A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...
in
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...
, before earning undergraduate and graduate degrees at
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...
in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
.
Advanced Placement
Packer began his career with the College Board as a temporary employee for the AP office in New York City while earning a
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
in English. In 1999, Packer was given the title of Assistant Director of Operations. When Lee Jones left the AP program in 2003, Packer took over as the head of the program.
Packer launched sweeping changes to AP courses in the 2012-13 academic year, following recommendations from the National Research Council and the National Academy of Science.
The number of multiple-choice questions on the exams was decreased, while various subjects' exam weights shifted to written responses, analysis of sources and data, projects, and portfolios.
The redesign of the AP US History course generated significant controversy in 2014.
Packer's rapid expansion of the program generated criticism that AP was financially benefiting from underprepared and underprivileged students taking exams.
Packer responded to these criticisms by emphasizing that average test scores had not dropped significantly when access to the courses was expanded. Education policy analysts
Chester E. Finn Jr. and Andrew E. Scanlan also found that during the period of rapid growth under Packer, the average AP score "barely budged: 2.84 in 2017, down slightly from 2.88 in 2007," and attributes this to "Packer's own hand
eingon the AP tiller since 2003".
Nat Malkus, a researcher at the conservative
American Enterprise Institute, praised Packer's expansion of the AP program as the "rarest kind of success in public education".
See also
*
Advanced Placement
Advanced Placement (AP) is a program in the United States and Canada created by the College Board which offers college-level curricula and examinations to high school students. American colleges and universities may grant placement and course ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Packer, Trevor
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Brigham Young University alumni
People from Provo, Utah