Tom Ultican switched from a career in high tech to teaching high school physics and math in San Diego.
After much reflection, he has concluded that AP classes should be eliminated.
Read his article and see if you agree.
“What if the education reform ideology is wrong? What if the ideology of reform was based on an incorrect understanding of developmentally appropriate pedagogy? In a 2006 hearing before the senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, Assistant Secretary of Education, Henry Johnson testified, “We believe that the Advanced Placement program offers a proven, scalable approach to raising expectations and increasing rigor in America’s high schools, particularly those with high concentrations of low-income students that typically do not offer such curricula.” What if that belief is ill-founded?
“I taught AP physics and what a treat that was for me. I always had the highest performing students in the high school. This year both the salutatorian and the valedictorian were in my class. It was way more interesting than teaching a concepts oriented class in physics designed for the general student. Of course, I enjoyed teaching AP Physics to the school’s elite students, however, I perceived a dark side. The more I pondered it, the more I concluded that the AP and IB programs were developmentally inappropriate…
“AP stands for advanced placement. It is a product of College Board, the testing giant that produces the SAT tests. College Board is organized as a “non-profit” but it has hundreds of employees making six and seven figure incomes. AP is being heavily promoted by technology companies, politicians and other corporations. There is a push to make AP the leader in curricular development and teacher training. AP employs the teach to the test strategy of pedagogy.
“The National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) is now putting pressure towards the expansion of AP courses in high schools across the nation. A teacher in the Sweetwater Union High School District wrote me this week saying teachers are under heavy pressure to participate in NMSI/AP sponsored training and AP class promotion.
“Both AP and IB, allow students to earn college credits that are accepted by most universities. But is it developmentally appropriate? Are we harming students?…
“There are many factors that would improve education and they are well known; smaller class sizes, integrated schools, well maintained modern facilities and teachers certificated in the subjects they teach are four such positive reforms. Surprisingly, increasing rigor and driving expectations down to younger students are counter-productive.
“Kindergarteners should receive lessons such as don’t eat the clay and it’s not nice to pull hair. Academics are developmentally inappropriate and likely unhealthy for them. Teaching Newton’s laws of motion and principles of algebra in fourth grade will surely cause more harm than good. The nine-year-old brain is not ready for symbolic reasoning. And, teenagers are dealing with natural biological stress; they need a safe low stress environment for healthy development. Rigor and high stakes testing is the wrong recipe.
“It is time to rethink AP and roll it back.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well… there’s a term I haven’t heard in a long time: “developmentally appropriate.” We’ve been pushing down curriculum for years to our detriment. Teaching reading to students, especially boys, way too early. Piaget waking up again?
As long as we are tracking students by age we will need to have advanced classes for those students who are bored with the “developmentally appropriate” classes they are typically offered to their age track. AP, or something very like it, is necessary for those students.
I am not opposed to offering advanced courses to those students who are ready. Any decent teacher can spot the student who needs to move ahead at the elementary level, and high school should offer more than cookie cutter courses. As we all know, developmentally appropriate material is not the same for all students. What I am opposed to is the push for more rigor that requires that students, ready or not, to take AP courses. I keep thinking of a lesson my kids learned “raising” Monarch butterflies in kindergarten. The teacher read a book that showed that the butterfly needed to emerge from its chrysalis on its own to develop strong wings. Somewhere along the line, they also got the same lesson from chick hatching. Chicks that have been helped to emerge from their shells too soon often do not survive. We need to take the same care with our children and stop preparing kindergartners for college and careers. How about just helping them develop into the next iteration of “kid”?
No, just allow them to graduate early and move on to college. Simple, effective for those supposedly “advanced” students (like your son, TE). If they are ready for university level work, well have at it, eh!
Have to disagree here, my friend. Our kids who have graduated early have generally not succeeded in college. There needs also to be a social maturity going on. AP might not be the best, but early entry into college is suspect also.
However it is not my decision as a teacher to determine what a student wants or needs. That decision should be up to the student and his/her parents/guardians. Hey, if that “advanced” student then struggles, well, that is just part of the learning curve as far as I am concerned. TE is making the case for those supposed “advanced” students to take AP & IB coursework (being familiar with AP, I can say that in Spanish it becomes nothing more than teaching to the test as I already taught as much if not more than the AP format). I don’t agree with the AP hype and supposed academic glamour.
And I happen to be one that believes in allowing kids to be kids and not being forced into “growing up” too quickly. There’s plenty of time for the world of work after one gets out of high school, you know, the rest of one’s life. Why ruin what should be a sufficiently “free” time in one’s life?
Duane,
The difficulty would have been to get a university other than our local university to accept a younger student like my middle son. As it was, he graduated from high school at 16 and I think his young age played a role in college admissions. The University of Chicago appeared to be more friendly to younger students than most other highly selective schools.
Duane: I agree with that. It is the parent’s decision. Also, you are correct about teaching to the AP test. Teaching to any test invalidates what little validity there is in a test.
Roy,
Perhaps the simplest solution is for students to take the exam without taking the AP class. That is what my middle son did for the majority of the exams that hey took. If students do that, there is no possibility of teaching to the exam.
Why is “advanced” always so narrowly defined? Why does it only mean math and science geniuses? What about “advanced” artists, musicians or dancers? What about kids who are “advanced” in social interaction? What about those who are “advanced” in mechanical skills or sports? Would you agree that those kids also deserve opportunities to enrich their “advanced” skills in a way that’s developmentally appropriate for them?
Incidentally, what about the flip side? What about so-called “advanced” kids who lack social skills or who have zero common sens and can’t find their way out of a cul-de-sac? What about bad artists and musicians? What about those of us who have trouble using machines let alone building or fixing them? Should those individuals have to take remedial classes to correct those issues?
Advanced means anything you want it to mean.
That’s the beauty of it.
I had “advanced” classes in high school that were very much UNlike AP in that the teaching was NOT dictated by a test and if the teacher wanted to take time to go off on a “tangent,” they were free to do so.
But unfortunately, College Board, colleges and even some AP teachers have got everyone brainwashed into believing that if it’s not AP, it’s not advanced. Or even worse, if it’s not AP, it’s just no good.
Who is defining “advanced” narrowly?
These are Advanced PLACEMENT exams. They started not to give college credit but to allow students to place into a higher level class.
Many high schools have art classes that are for more advanced artists and they have art classes that are for beginners. Same with music. Of course those students should have the opportunity to develop their skills! What does offering an AP Calc BC class to students with advanced math skills have to do with that?
I agree with you about how these classes are being overused and oversold and marketed. That needs to be stopped.
But the idea of having advanced classes in some courses shouldn’t be that controversial. Most of the AP classes I have experience with from my kid are better than the Honors classes I took in high school. There are some that I thought seemed awful but then I’d hear another kid talking about how much she loved that one!
So well said!! I so agree!!
I teach AP art studio. I have juniors and seniors. There is a lot to say about being developmentally appropriate. Some of my students will do fine, others will struggle due to lack of skill, lack of maturity, too many other AP courses and no time to create art, lack of focus, and I could go on and on. Bottom line. AP is not for everyone; the child, teacher, and parent need to decide together if it is the right course to take.
AGREE! AP classes are for the “high schieving” parents anyway.
Yep…It’s the parents and the constant need to compete using their children. It isn’t about who drives the most expensive car or lives in the swanky house…..it’s about how many AP classes their kids take and how high their test scores are. Little do these parents realize that they have bilked their children out of an education and have diminished their childhoods. I live in a county that pushes AP for all or else you sit and rot in a classroom. My son will be attending private HS next year because of this…they have AP, but only a select few with above average grades are allowed to partake and they limit how many per year. AP is a bunch of garbage IMHO.
Yes, it is the parents, but I’m not sure that competition is all of it (a lot of it, yes, unfortunately). But there is also a genuine fear – whether legitimate or not – that if Little Susie or Bubba Junior doesn’t take all AP classes and get all As and participate in sports and debate club and student government and generally run him/herself ragged that s/he won’t get into college (or at least a good college) and then s/he’ll never get a good job and s/he’ll be living in Mom’s basement for the rest of his/her life. The fear industry is very powerful these days with tentacles into nearly all aspects of our lives. We must obey or else face life-long gloom and doom!
But the thing is…..there are a lot of kids that are run ragged in HS, get into good colleges, graduate with decent grades and still wind up living in the basement or working at Target. I don’t care what my kids choose to pursue in life…..I want them to be happy in their life. It doesn’t matter to me if my son wants to become an auto mechanic or a plumber just as long as he is productive and happy. If my daughter wants to play in a band and that makes her happy, I will go along with it. Life isn’t about work, it’s about living and being happy with what you have and with who you are. Parents today, think life is about “things” and their children are just “things” that are a reflection of them. Parents drive this madness.
I agree with you completely, but I’m afraid the propaganda has reached an awful lot of parents. I can’t tell you how many times fellow parents advise me that I should be doing XYZ with my kids because “it looks good on a college application” or some such thing. My oldest is 15 and just starting the college journey. The two littles are almost 11 and 9 – plenty of time to worry later (much later). But still, practically every day I hear something along the lines of “if you don’t …, your daughters will be at a serious disadvantage. Sigh.
“Yep…It’s the parents and the constant need to compete using their children.”
Can’t totally agree. It may be for some parents but my daughter decided what classes she wanted to take and she had a full load of AP as she had been brainwashed by the school itself (supposedly one of the top public schools in Missouri) to believing the AP line. I told her it wasn’t necessary, but what does dad know at that point in a child’s life?
Duane,
I bet Noel Wilson would have been able to convince her not to take AP.😀
@Duane…yes the schools push it and push it hard. I have a Sophomore and I KNOW! My daughter wants to take 1 here or there and I’m OK with that. The parents just like to believe that their kids are smarter/better than the others and are impressed when the paperwork comes home from the guidance office that allows their children to take >3 AP classes per year. The parents go into overdrive! What the parents don’t know is that most kids are getting the same paperwork. Other parents tell me all the time that my daughter won’t get into college or won’t get a good job because I won’t make her take AP everything. Guess what, I bet in 10 yrs down the road, my daughter will have a job/ career and she will be happy in her life. I’ll wait to gloat. I’m already seeing an awful lot of the crazy parents with unhappy children dropping out of college….always an excuse to cover up their embarrassment.
YSR, h.s.principals tell parents that families can savecollege tuition money with those AP credits. Poor families find this appealing.
Don’t know statistics of the percentages of these courses accepted for graduation credits by colleges, but have heard fellow parents grumbling about numbers of courses that the colleges didn’t accept for credit. Do any of the high school teavhers have an opinion anout Project Lead The Way?
Chris,
You can find the distribution of AP student scores here: https://apscore.collegeboard.org/scores/about-ap-scores/score-distributions//
Acceptance of AP scores for credit differ from university to university and from department to department within a university. You can search for each university or college policy online to see what credit they will offer.
University of Arizona, for example, will offer 20 credits towards graduation if a student gets a 5 on the Japanese language and culture exam and 10 credits if a student gets a 3 on the exam. A 5 on the environmental science exam will only give a student 3 credits, and a 3 on that exam will give a student no credit.
To give you some context, University of Arizona generally requires 120 credits to graduate, so a student with a 5 on Japanese language and culture, a 4 in biology, a 4 in BC calculus, a 4 in US History, and a 4 in European History would enter the University of Arizona with 46 credits and second semester sophomore standing.
You can find the U of A’s AP credit policy here: http://catalog.arizona.edu/policy/advanced-placement-ap-program
It was way more interesting than teaching a concepts oriented class in physics designed for the general student.”
Also much easier and much less important.
In an intro physics course, learning the physical concepts (inertia, action /reaction, energy conservation, etc) and developing a physical intuition are far more important than being able to manipulate equations.
There is lots of time for the latter in college. In fact, that is pretty much ALL physics becomes later on — sadly.
The irony is that many of the greatest achievements in physics actually came out of questions about very simple physical concepts that only a few people were asking (basically, because almost all of the adults had stopped asking them)
Einstein’s theories of relativity (special and general) are probably the best examples. It takes a lot of math to discover all the implications, but the basic ideas can be understood (and explained) with almost no math.
Incidentally, my niece is taking “general” high school physics and the teacher who is normally the AP teacher hates teaching the class and tells the students that on a daily basis.
She won’t explain anything to them , calls them stupid and is constantly comparing them to her “brilliant” AP students.
She’s from Russia and probably thinks most Americans are stupid, at any rate.
Your niece’s teacher should not be teaching that class-or perhaps any class. Any teacher who berates students as stupid doesn’t belong anywhere near a classroom.
She has actually done some very good things with the AP classes. But you are right that she should not be teaching the intro course and certainly should not be calling students stupid.
The irony is that she was actually given the general physics class because she called a student stupid last year.
The “brilliant” administration thought they would “teach her a lesson” (they showed her!) but instead she is making it miserable for the general physics students.
The administrator who determined to “show” the teacher sounds like a perfectly good example of being an adminimal.
The universities are the ones with the power. The day they wake up and realize that AP is a scam is the day AP ends. But from what I’ve been seeing in our (admittedly very newly launched) college search with my daughter, too many still buy into it, especially the public universities.
Getting colleges to deemphasize AP is actually much harder than getting them to drop SAT and ACT requirements.
Colleges have been convinced by people like David Coleman and even by many AP teachers (some who have commented here) that non-AP is substandard.
Besides, AP has become so prevalent that it is now “baked” into GPA, (AP courses usually count more) which colleges rely on for admissions.
Parents have drank the KOOK-AID, while colleges RANK up their profits via AP courses.
key word for this conversation: profit
My daughter found out real quickly that those universities discounted her 5’s for those AP courses down to 4’s.
I’ve been teaching course for which students can get college credit for years. In general, it doesn’t work. There are always students in the class who can’t handle the work load and intensity. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad they’re in the class, but they just can’t do college level work. Or they don’t want to. When I tell them that for a 3 credit college class, they really should be doing 9 hours of work outside class, they lose interest immediately. Of course, no high school student should have to do 9 hours of homework per week for one class, but yet, they want college credit and they want to work at a college level. Most kids (usually 11 – 12 graders) are under enough stress already with the number of Regents exams (and other exams) they have to take and they are taking more classes than they would in college. High school is NOT college. The schedules are different. The maturity level (hopefully) is different. It’s different on many levels. The other thing I’ve always hated about college level classes is that I’m bound to teach what the college wants. Most of the time, it’s pretty boring stuff out of a boring textbook. I loved the days (long ago now) when the kids took my class because they wanted to have fun and learn and do different things and explore. No more. It’s all scripted and monitored. Blah.
It’s also not fair to high school students to make high school classes equivalent to college classes. When I was in high school I had seven class periods a day, which junior and senior year were all academic. I was in school 35 hours a week. By college standards, I should have had about 60+ hours of homework a week, so school would have been like two+ full time jobs (where was my time and a half??).
By college I was taking four 3-credit classes per quarter, so I was in class 12 hours plus maybe another 5-10 for labs, TA sessions, etc. Given that schedule, 30-40 hours of homework per week (which I never really had that much) isn’t unreasonable.
It’s actually inhuman.
One of my nieces was taking just a single AP course (US History) last year and she had to stay up until 3 in the morning on a regular basis to keep up with all the reading and writing.
The teacher actually takes pride in her reputation for giving so much work (much of undoubtedly just busy work)
One word: WHITE SUPREMACY!
I wonder if minority students who are “crowned” with AP classes, feel DUBBED as BETTER, do they then learn how to continue to promote instituional prejudice to belong?
Tom Ultican says “I am not saying there is an evil conspiracy here. I believe that people like Peter O’Donnell the wealthy businessman and political activist from Dallas, Texas, who poured personal wealth into promoting AP are totally sincere in their desire to improve the plight of education in America. I have the same view of Bill Gates and Louis Gerstner. The problem is they have great financial and political power, unfortunately, they do not know what they don’t know about human development and good pedagogy.”
I believe this is a very naiive view and a big part of the problem.
It gives these people an implicit license to do “experiments” on millions of school children because, you know, ” their motives are pure”.
Whether there is a “conspiracy” is neither here nor there. If people have the same “market driven” ideology, they don’t need to conspire.
And if you actually look at the way people like Gates operate, you can see that there is something very dishonest — and insidious — going on. The mere fact that he distributes much of his money through a network of asroturf organizations is enough to give one pause.
And whether people acknowledge it or not, there quite clearly WAS a conspiracy between Gates, Coleman and Duncan with regard to Common Core.
There is no way it ever would have been adopted so quickly by so many states without one.
Agreed with all.
SDP,
No question about the secret plan to impose Common Corebefore anyone knew what it was. It had not been evaluated. It had many defects. But Duncan required states to adopt it to be eligible for Race to Top money, before the actual standards were finished. The State Commissioner in Texas, Fobert Scott, refused to sign, sight unseen.
There is a big opportunity for a Pulitzer waiting for any journalist who digs into this deeply.
My guess is that laws were actually violated.
It’s interesting that Trump has not touched this, despite his claimed opposition to Common Core.
Trump forgot about his promise to get rid of CC. Betsy says “leave it to the states,” which protects Common Core.
I’d love to see the emails between those three.
I’d bet they did not use their “official” emails or names.
Arne was prolly Hoopster and Bill was undoubtedly “God” or “His Lordship”.
Coleman’s handle was prolly “dontgivea$#@t”
I saw a news report last night from the Golden Apple award people. They honored Arnie Duncan: https://www.goldenapple.org/pr-impact-award-arne-duncan
A quick look at board of directors shows that almost every one of them comes from the corporate sector.
https://www.goldenapple.org/board-of-directors
Seems to be Chicago-based.
Rightwing governor Bruce Rauner is one of their emeritus board members.
Thanks for the link, speduktr, I think. Now I need a bath. It makes about as much sense as Henry Kissinger, Barack Obama and Aung San Suu Kyi getting the Nobel Peace Prize.
Let me guess: Golden Apple Foundation gets funding from Gates Foundation.
I have been against AP courses and dual enrollment for years now.
IB is not even that widespread in Europe where it started.
People are in such a hurry to get their kids to college that they shortchange our kids education.Most courses K-14 are survey courses. Take American History for example– Two American History courses are likely to be different, so you have college graduates with only 1 year of American History instead of two. It is possible to graduate high school and have an Associate’s degree simultaneously. But you have not taken so much high school.
AP courses are a waste of time. Most kids that take them do not pass the AP test and get college credit but it is one way our states rank high schools, by the number of AP test takers not by how many passed.
I have written against these things.
What is the rush? Age (and place) appropriate education is what we should be doing!
The percentage of students getting a 3, 4 or 5 differs from exam to exam, and what will give students college credit will differ from university to university and between departments in the same university.
In my university, the Economics Department gives credit for an AP score of 3 or higher. The College Board reports that 56.7% of students taking the AP Macro exam scored at least a 3 on the exam and 68.3% of students taking the AP Micro exam scored at least a 3. Both figures are from 2017.
See https://apscore.collegeboard.org/scores/about-ap-scores/score-distributions// for the distribution of scores across all exams.
Think about the small percentage needing AP Classes and the large percentage of students who need to achieve life skills? Which do you think need more consideration of help? Parents are pushing AP. So is administration and counselors to make their districts look good! Let’s educate the whole child!
Don’t believe AP or IB classes should be awarded college credits. However, taking those classes will help students succeed in college. It’s like parents who review math during the summer so the students better understand the material being taught in the upcoming school year. In schools you never know if the teacher will cover all the material a student is capable of learning. A common language and curriculum is better than winging it. It give everyone – public and private, rich and poor, a roadmap. The rigor in AP classes with the right teacher is priceless. I look at the number of 4-5 scores to determine school districts that have teachers that can bring families who want it to that academic level.
Many parents I’ve spoken with from my no AP school all say they struggled in the first months at college and how unprepared they were compared to others. All those college educated parents want AP and for good reason. It levels the playing field.
Our response should be not how intelligent your child is based on standard scores in the classical education? There’s enough AP style classes to address How are you intelligent? Art, Math, History, Music, Science. High scores in any of those catagories tells us about the school. It’s transparent information we all should want.
Sigh. Could you perhaps consider changing your handle? I haven’t seen much evidence of it so far.
I strongly disagree with this.
AP Classes were designed to be honors classes for students who were capable of doing more advanced work. Making them available to students in very poor schools is a good thing even if there are only 3 students who want them.
The problem is that having an AP class with more advanced material somehow morphed into AP for all. And instead of simply returning to the original intent people want to throw it out. Why?
Is it somehow better to not offer honors classes? Is it better to have honors classes without any universal exam that might reveal that a student in some mediocre high school in mid-America can outscore most of the overprivileged private school students taking the same exam? Is it much better that overprivileged students get the benefit of the doubt in college admissions that the A on their private school transcript in Calculus is more worthy than the A- in a no name public school when it turns out that the public school student receiving the A- gets a 5 on the AP Exam while the student with the A from their coddling private school gets a 3. Do we accept that the overprivileged student “just wasn’t trying because it wasn’t important” as private schools are able to sell to college admissions officers?
The discussion about AP courses and exams should be ONLY about how to educate the highest achieving high school students who are specifically looking for a challenge.
Why are we changing the terms of the debate in which somehow AP classes have to do with all of education? That is not what they were designed for and people should be framing the discussion in the right context.
Though some obviously believe otherwise, it is certainly possible to have accelerated courses without having AP.
Not AP does not necessarily mean not advanced.
Two other things:
AP does not mean a course is superior and nonAP does not mean it is inferior.
This whole AP thing has got people brainwashed.
No one is saying that one is superior and one isn’t. You parrot what private schools say. “Our non-AP class is superior. How dare you ask our overprivileged students to prove it by having them take the same exam as those public school students whose higher scores are obviously only because they are “taught to the test”. Just trust us because we represent the 1%. Our students are superior, our classes are superior, and they are far more deserving of seats at top colleges than those inferior public school students who get 5s only because they are taught to the test.”
I’m sorry, did you think I was responding to you?
I’m sorry, am I forbidden from replying to a comment unless it is specifically addressed to me?
I have never met a single parent who thinks that it is impossible to have an accelerated course without having it be an AP course. Maybe those parents exist somewhere.
AP courses and the accompanying exams are one of a variety of ways in which a student from a low-income school who happens to be brilliant can prove it without being dependent on having an overworked teacher notice it.
A kid from a low income high school getting 5s on AP Exams in Calc B/C, AP Chem and Physics C presents a very different picture than the kid in that low income high school getting As in the class that the school claims is “Accelerated” which means something different in every single school. And the grading policies for accelerated classes are different in every single school. Sometimes they are different in the same school because one teacher gives easy As and the other doesn’t.
The kid in the rural area who gets 5s on AP Exams proves academic prowess much more than getting As in the class that his small rural school says is “advanced”.
Oxford and Cambridge will not even consider American students unless they have at least 3 scores of 5s on AP Exams (and they don’t accept some of the exams as rigorous enough.)
APs have been promoted as something for all students to get college credit. But that wasn’t really what they started out as. They started as coursework for advanced high school students.
And how does “teaching to the test” come in when you are talking about AP Calculus?
I agree with NYC public school parent. Our public schools need to provide challenging opportunities for students at all levels of readiness.
“developmentally appropriate” is not a one size fits all. Some children learn to read and do arithmetic at very early ages. No reason to hold them back.
And schools used to be that way before ed reform. Everyone was allowed to take the advanced classes in 12th grade providing they took certain classes in grades 9-11 and got a C or better. If your parents thought you were smart enough, they paid $100 (this was 1982) and signed you up to take the AP exam that was given in only a few places. Most kids didn’t pass the AP as you had to have a 5 to be able to skip the college intro course. I took Advanced Bio (and it was pretty darn advanced!) but it was my choice and was not forced on me and I didn’t take the test.
AP classes are not required for students to take the AP exams in the subject.
AP does not mean better or even more advanced.
But it does mean “taught to a test”. That REALLY distorts what is taught and how it is taught.
And the “either AP OR nothing advanced” meme is just completely illogical.
Who believes there was nothing for more advanced students in the days before AP?
Sure, they had advanced courses before APs.
APs were started in the elite private and public schools.
Anone who believes that AP means “taught to the test” should not be an AP teacher. Maybe that’s how you teach AP classes. And I’m sorry that you don’t trust your students to do well on an exam if you don’t “teach to it”.
Whatever that ridiculous term means.
Next time you get indignant that someone has accused you of “attacking”, please go back and re-read these lines: “Maybe that’s how you teach AP classes. And I’m sorry that you don’t trust your students to do well on an exam if you don’t “teach to it”.”
You can’t help yourself, can you? It’s just a reflex for you, isn’t it?
Incidentally, SDP isn’t a teacher.
Spaghetti 🍝
Dienne
I actually was a teacher for a while and while I was no expert, I’d venture that I know more about it than the Spaghettifier does
But i find it better not to respond to nonsense.
Or to respond with 🍝
Perhaps you’d like some basghetti.
Spaghetti happens to be one of my favorite foods, SDP. You’re turning me off to it.
Dienne
The reference is to spaghettification
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettification
Whereby one gets stretched to breaking length before eventually crunching down to the singularity at the center of a black hole from which one can never escape (at least not in one piece)
I know, you posted that before. But now every time I try to eat spaghetti I associate it with NYCPSP and imagine words getting put in my mouth, which I image would taste rather dry and papery – not at all like savory spaghetti sauce.
I agree with you totally NYCPSP. If you don’t like AP classes, then don’t have your kids take them; however, they should be available to students who want and need a challenge. My daughter learned so much in her AP classes. Too bad these non-teaching bullies feel the need to disparage your valuable opinions.
Abby,
Thank you very much.
If you are wondering what is going on, there is a group of mean girl types on here who like to jump on me. FLERP! especially always jumps in out of the blue to attack me because FLERP! is very upset that I noticed that he won’t say one bad word about Eva Moskowitz no matter what she does (endorse Betsy DeVos, suspend huge numbers of kindergarten children).
FLERP!’s standards:
Eva Moskowitz = FLERP! can’t judge her and certainly will not criticize her directly because she might be a great and caring and very ethical person who gets unlucky having the occasional bad teacher.
NYC public school parent = so deserving of criticism for defending AP exams that FLERP! must jump in from out of the blue to make a gratuitous attack.
After I posted, there were SEVEN! snarky attacks on me. You’d think I was the devil instead of a public school parent who cares about public education and wants to discuss it.
I was frustrated with SomeDAM Poet asserting with absolutely no evidence that “AP does mean taught to a test”.
It was an insulting attack on every single student who strives to do well and proves their mettle. “Oh, you were just taught to the test and your 5 score means nothing”.
But I overreacted to SomeDAM Poet’s sweeping insult of every single teacher who teaches an AP class and only “teaches to the test”. I’m just glad my kid doesn’t have one of those “teach to the test” teachers. And I’m sad that SomeDAM Poet never met an AP teacher who did anything but teach to the test. I promise you, SomeDAM Poet, they are out there.
Plus no one ever said there weren’t ANY advanced courses before APs. But anyone who thinks most poor public school students had access to all those advanced classes in their high schools must have lived somewhere other than where I grew up. Where we didn’t have AP classes. Nor any “advanced” classes in science or math.
Thank you, Abby, for not joining the mean girl chorus. I guess I don’t mind that much since I figure if attacking a random parent makes them all feel good, then have at it. I can take it.
But I will defend myself. Especially when one of the attackers is the notorious FLERP! who claims that as far as he is concerned, Eva Moskowitz has never done anything to make her worthy of criticism.
Attacks from FLERP! are a compliment. Because I understand that attacks from anyone who keeps claiming that Eva Moskowitz has yet to demonstrate a single action worthy of criticizing her directly are actually compliments. When Eva Moskowitz’ defenders are attacking you, it is a compliment if you believe in public schools.
Attack on you? I posted what I thought was a humorous clip from a very funny movie, because I thought it was amusing. It had absolutely nothing to do with you. So imagine my surprise when I see my name all over this comment thread. Please, chill a bit!
Diane, it does not speak well of you that you continue to allow NYCPSP to lash out like this in your living room without saying anything. This post is a perfect example of everything that we have been saying about her for months now. She’s putting words in people’s mouths, pretending that she’s been “attacked” and using that to lash out at other commenters. “Mean girl types?” Seriously? I’m guessing Joel, Greg B, SDP, Duane and FLERP! are rather surprised to find that they are girls, let alone mean ones. I’m the only one who remotely qualifies as a “girl” and that only in the way that 1950s Mad Men types talk about the “girls” in the office.
I am sorry, Dienne.
I have so many major offenders that NYC PSP slips past the radar. Learn to ignore what you don’t like. I deal with Charles 10 times or more daily and jscheidell pops in to deny climate change and there are others with whom you are familiar. Don’t take the bait.
dienne77,
Read the 7 posts following mine. There was a reason that “Abby” (who I swear I do not know) called you bullies.
And I used the well-known term “mean girls” which most people understand has nothing to do with gender. It was popularized from the movie. It’s about making snide and gratuitously mean remarks in a gang.
It does not speak well of you, dienne77, that multiple times you have insisted that Diane stop me from posting. You guys posted 7 gratuitously nasty posts in a row. I have never done that to you — just posted a nasty gratuitous comment.
And I only called out FLERP! because he (or she) came from out of the blue to join in your mean KIDS attacks.
NYC PSP,
Try to chill. Civility must be the norm here. Don’t attack anyone. Don’t lash out. We are on the same side.
Diane,
I’m sorry and I will watch my tone. But I hope you will read the 7 posts in a row designed to belittle and insult me and perhaps tell those posters that joining in a “mean girl” series of posts designed to belittle someone is also not appropriate.
Some random poster named “Abby” even called them bullies after she read the series of posts that dienne77 and friends posted. So while I realize my “tone” needs work, I think theirs does, too.
I go out of my way not to call other people names even when I vehemently disagree with them and even when they join to make fun of me. As much as I dislike the views of some posters like Charles and FLERP!, I don’t make fun of them. I wish they gave me the same courtesy.
I welcome criticism of my opinions. But I think it is beneath dienne77 and the others to spend 7 posts making fun of me. I realize they all got a nice laugh at my expense but I think it was beneath them, and beneath the standards you have for this blog.
The real problem is the grade inflation game. AP classes offer more credit, and raise GPAs. In an environment with more people completing for spots in college, the game is rigged towards AP classes. You can tell you kid not to, but when you look at acceptance rates for colleges, it is difficult to argue against it.
I can scream and rant that it is garbage and a lame game, and I can be correct. But if it is how the rules are set, and my kid wants to go to college, we are forced into it.
I think the impact of AP classes on GPA and class standing depends on the local district. My local district computes GPA on the 4.0 scale, without anything extra for advanced classes.
Love seeing this headline. Back in the dark ages when I was educated, there were some advanced interest classes and a few AP classes. Some kids took them. I ended up in a single AP class – English because my counsellor kind of pushed me in. It turned out to be superb – an advanced course taught in innovative ways by a brilliant teacher.
Fast forward to 3 years ago when my oldest was a Jr. in high school. Everybody he hung out with was driven to take every AP class possible, overload their schedule with these “honors”, suffer through testing in the spring, and all thinking it would perfect their college future.
Yet the AP classes were rigidly structured to follow national curriculum, needed to be taught to meet a national test, and delivered essentially the same learning as the rest of his classmates received. So he took two. They were ok, but not the least bit special.
AP classes have become an industry. And that has sucked all of the value out of them. Our advanced students need a small number of interesting, challenging, & unique classes. They don’t need the regular classes with a lot more hype.
” I ended up in a single AP class – English because my counsellor kind of pushed me in. It turned out to be superb – an advanced course taught in innovative ways by a brilliant teacher.”
Wouldn’t be great to return to those days of the APs?
Wait, aren’t you going to lash out at him for saying this: “Yet the AP classes were rigidly structured to follow national curriculum, needed to be taught to meet a national test…”? That is, after all, what you lashed out at SDP for. Or are you now willing to admit that AP classes now do in fact, by design, teach to the test?
Doug Garnett offered a specific anecdote about his own son’s experience taking 2 AP Classes in his specific high school. How can I argue with him when for all I know his son’s classes were taught that way. I assume he is recounting his own experience of AP classes. According to him, the AP classes were exactly the same as the non-AP classes in his son’s school.
I don’t have an argument with anyone who says that AP classes CAN be taught that way in some schools. How can I argue with that?
SomeDAM Poet said this:’
AP does not mean better or even more advanced.
But it does mean “taught to a test”. That REALLY distorts what is taught and how it is taught.”
That is a sweeping statement about all APs. That is what I was objecting to.
It seemed obviously intended to imply that there was absolutely no value to the classes. Maybe I missed it.
And my point was that “taught to a test” is just meaningless words. I hated the state tests but anyone who claimed my kid’s teacher did nothing at all the entire year but “teach to the test” was gravely insulting all the teachers that taught the material and spent a few weeks doing additional test prep.
And especially when you are talking about advanced learners, who are the ones taking the AP classes, simply dismissing it as “teaching to the test” is incredibly insulting to both the teachers teaching it and students who score 5s on the exams because they learned a lot and understand the subject.
If Doug Garnett says that AP MEANS “taught to a test”, then I would have commented on that. He related his own experience, which included being engaged in an AP class himself.
I cannot judge the affect of AP classes today, because so much has changed
but I was a sub who taught in 2 high schools, and 3 middle schools which had AP classes in the eighties.,. MY sons were in all AP classes and I was delighted. Because the level of engagement, and the quality of the conversations, and the speed of learning were crucial.
This was a fine school, and behavior problems were not and issue.
But, I witnessed the difference, not in the teaching or the curriculum, but In the average classes, where students often held up the learning, unable to grasp concepts and materials —sometimes for weeks, holding up the entire class… even after the teacher went over and over the problems and arranged/provided help after classes.
My son was in one on-level math class, because he had some very poor instruction in the preceding grade. I hired a tutor to bring him up to the level of the AP class, so he could keep up… thank goodness I did. He went on to earn top scores on the state SATs, and won one of the first NYS Empire State Scholarships. He never could have done this if it weren’t for AP classes.
There are all kinds of ‘special ed’ kids.
Thank you.
It hasn’t changed that much. AP classes are still often that when the students in them are highly motivated and academically advanced — the very students that APs were originally designed for.
I’m sure there are some mediocre and bad AP teachers out there just like there are bad and mediocre teachers who teach non-AP classes who don’t engage with the material and follow some rote script.
But there are also excellent AP teachers who use the material is an interesting way.
And, FYI, for my kid, the AP classes seemed to have LESS work! There was far less busy work as homework so while the reading load was more rigorous, the overall time spent on the course seemed less while engaging students more.