I often hear AP lauded because it enables students to get through college in only three years, thus saving a year of tuition. What if college were free? Would there be such a rush to get it over with? What’s the purpose of college? Why four years? Why not three or two or one or none? A few years ago, a very rich guy offered 10 students $100,000 not to go to college. I haven’t heard how that turned out. Did they create businesses? Did they drop out of his program and go to college? Are they homeless?
I am biased or uninformed or both. When I went to high school, there were no AP classes. My children never took an AP class. I have no experience with them.
Roy Turrentine asks some questions here about the purpose of AP courses.
“I have the same problem with AP that I have with Dual Credit classes. It is not a question of whether the class is exciting or rigorous. It is not a question of whether the students are ready or not. It is a question of what society wants out of education. So I will pose it.
“Why do we want to take our smartest kids and teach them half as much? True, it will be cheaper for kids to go to college. Why not just fund college? We need our smartest kids to get Western Civilization twice. They need to study American History under a good committed instructor in high school, then under an erudite, professorial relationship in college. We need all students to know the things we need to make them citizens. The smartest ones will hopefully be our community leaders and realize the importance of their education.”
In my own experience, AP helped me out. While my friends were sitting through a college English class that mostly dealt with grammatical errors and writing basic essays, I was reading some good books in sophomore English. But my best experience was when I studied American History and Western Civilization again, it introduced me to the two professors who would be like fathers to me. We cannot predict where our experience will lead.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As a parent, I don’t understand why we are rushing kids with all of this AP stuff. I also think that the pressure to get a high GPA so smart kids can get scholarships is also very dysfunctional. The kids who end up at the top of the class are often the most compliant. Is that what we want?
As an AP English Lit and Comp teacher, I totally see benefits for my students way beyond taking the AP test and possibly saving these students money. My school has very few restrictions for who gets to take these courses, so a large variety of students with varying skills take the courses. Just by saying it is a college-level course, students go into it with a mentality that makes them know this will be challenging. Also the AP teacher communities, both online and in AP trainings, are amazing- so most AP teachers are connected with other teachers all over the world, constantly sharing ideas and asking questions to help students learn more. Obviously lots of teachers who are not AP teachers connect with other teachers, but as a 30 plus year teacher, the AP teacher communities are unique. AP courses are not the “end all, be all” but they help many students and teachers to really push themselves and to deep-dive into learning.
P – you see the advantage of the course that you teach just as I see the advantage of the courses I’ve taught in my day with the AP label. However in my case at least there was no value added by either the AP exam or the AP label other than public perception. In fact, I could have taught a better, more meaningful course if I was not shackled by college board restrictions.
I’d also say that in this day and age, high school teachers who teach advanced courses should have other options to form communities than the college board.
“deep dive into learning…”
That may be true for some students and teachers and Ap courses, but overall – as research makes quite clear – that simply is no the case.
The prep school Choate is DROPPING AP courses precisely because “recent advances in the field of teaching and learning suggest that the most effective pedagogies are active and learner-centered…the more content-heavy AP courses run counter to this trend and do not lend themselves to the pedagogical directions we are pursuing…”
P,
Do you know the meaning of hoity toity?
“But my best experience was when I studied American History and Western Civilization again,…”
……….
In high school I studied American history up to the civi war. Never had any education about Western or Eastern civilizations.
In college, I studied the history of the northwestern states. Learned that all the states were formed and that Idaho was pulled together by what was left.
Now I consider this a great lack. Hope schools are now doing a better job. Maybe its because I grew up in conservative Idaho that education was so limited. Went to college at Washington State.
None of this helped to make educated citizens.
I learned about Asia from living there and working in the Peace Corps after college.
I really believe that our plunge toward academics in all grades all the way to preschool has abandoned child development needs so we can force our kids to grow up and join the work force asap. It is truly embarrassing and a crying shame that developmental appropriate is now apparently in the past.
This is such an important perspective. I wish it could be shared with high school students and parents, and most especially with their guidance counselors, in public and private high schools across the country.
When my children were offered the opportunity to take AP courses there seemed to be no choice really. The question of what students or parents want out of education was not discussed beyond the future degree being sought. If you were on the academic track and in the honors program, you took AP. The counselors advised it, pointing out the advantages to entering college with a semester of year of credits, and all of a student’s academic peers would be in those classes.
The question of what society wants out of education is vital and seldom, if ever, asked in the discussion of whether or not to take AP courses. The rush to get credits turns education into a product rather than a process, and Turrentine speaks insightfully to the loss of where that experience can lead. I’d like to hear further discussion on this.
Thank you for your validation. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with AP or IB or anything else. Challenging yourself is good. It builds character. From society’s perspective, however, the student willing to face challenge will learn a great deal more at an older age. Students should take the hard courses in high school, then take them again in college if they can afford it.
You know, the sad thing is that there are lots of counselors who still think the SAT is a worthwhile, valid test…of something. Some even still think the acronym stands for Scholastic Aptitude or Achievement Test. It doesn’t.
SAT doesn’t stand for anything. Literally.
It means “I SAT for a few hours of taking a bullhit test”.
my experience isn’t current; however, I wanted to say that when I went to teacher’s conferences I learned a lot from the science and history teachers who taught AP (in other states , not my home state). The Civic Education courses were good sources and history teachers gave me excellent references of books to read. like “Cows, Pigs and Witches” and I learned about Jeremy Bentham from the history teachers. I came home from one conference and put a solar panel on my roof because of the good advice from science teachers. The people who taught those courses have probably been extremely curtailed in their creativity the same way many know the rigid tests have narrowed everything.
When I went to high school, there were no AP classes. My children never took an AP class. I have no experience with them. Roy
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
I have taught four different AP courses in four different high schools (to be clear, one course in all four). I have mixed feelings. It is one thing to be teaching Economics or Government to seniors. It is another to be teaching AP US Govt to 9th graders who have not yet had all of US history- you wind up teaching them a good deal of the history they don’t know in order to provide context. Also, in the case of Government, both US and Comparative, there is simply too much material too cover for them to be prepared for the test in order to have them go into the kind of depth that a real college course should. And when you have juniors taking 5 or more AP courses at a time when a full load at a college for someone several years older is 4 courses, there are some issues.
That said, I’d like to think that I have been able to challenge my students, regardless of how they do on AP exams, to think more deeply. I’d like to believe I am able to work on some skills.
I graduated from high school in 1963. In my AP US History class we had to have already completed US History. Now students take AP in lieu of the regular course, so they may lack the background. We not only read primary resources then, we also read classic historical works by the like of Samuel Eliot Morrison, Henry Steele Commager, Frederick Jackson Turner, etc. We were also a very elite group – only 13 of us. In my opinion there are too many people taking AP for the wrong reasons.
That said, and even knowing that I can challenge students even without the AP level, I accept the idea of teaching AP because I tend to get bright and motivated students that I can challenge. I have to say that most of the Facebook Friends who are former students are from my AP classes – we form connections.
It is a mixed bag. I think it is oversold. I think a prepared and dedicated teacher can challenge even bright students without having the AP designation and exam.
I agree with all of your observations. I too had a good experience with teaching a dual credit class to 9th graders, but for a class to double as a college credit, I would want to demand more than I could reasonably expect from people who were not very old.
I feel that teachers in1963 were way more likely to be in charge of what happened in class and in the local curriculum. Thus a rule such as the one you describe, that students who were enrolled in AP history must have already taken the regular course, was more likely to be employed. Last year I was asked to teach the course and sent to an inservice about how to teach it. Top down reform does not yield good results. You do not succeed In building a barn if you build the roof first. Better to provide the foundation.
Primarily, 9th graders take AP Human Geography. To my knowledge, that is the ONLY AP class suggested for freshmen. And the course, if done right, is an EXCELLENT introduction to the world for freshmen.
I wish that someone other than AP was making this kind of curriculum available. Since no one else is (at least in the social sciences), what does one do?
I think thre is an AP class for Western Civ but I am not sure if thre is an age requirement. The class I taught was a state of Tn offering for dual credit upon the passing of a test.
“I wish that someone other than AP was making this kind of curriculum available.”
Hmmmm. . . Isn’t it the teacher’s responsibility to make the curriculum for each class. What the hell does one need someone else to determine the curriculum for one’s classes?
TeacherKen said:
” a prepared and dedicated teacher can challenge even bright students without having the AP designation and exam.”
Guess what?
A “prepared and dedicated teacher can challenge” all kinds of students….they do not have to be “gifted” or labeled as “bright” or have been placed previously in “honors” courses.
Any interest in hearing from someone who took four AP classes in high school, who had one child who took 5 AP courses (1 course online through K-12 and 9 AP Exams) another who took 4 AP courses (and 4 exams), and who has taught Intro Micro and Intro Macro to around 10,000 students at a state flagship public university? Let me know below.