<p>Very valid points, tax guy. I should clarify that I support the inclusion of AP (because I like the curriculum, which is aptly advanced), particularly if it is taught in a socratic way in a school district that appropriately funds its inclusion. I also wholly support the notion that its delivery is teacher-specific. However, in this particular case, the magnet school to which I was referring was part of a severely underfunded urban district. In offering the APs (in order to keep or attract students that might be lost to the much wealthier and larger suburban magnet schools) the school drastically reduced its available resources to continue offering the other (non AP) courses and began the pervasive dismantling of the one thing that actually worked – the interdisciplinary humanities curriculum for which the school was renowned. Had the district chosen to adequately fund the school instead of sacrificing the PTR, instead of decreasing the music and arts offerings (in order to afford the scheduling of AP at a very small school) and instead of overloading the teachers so that there was not sufficient prep time to deliver AP in the way it was necessarily intended, then all would have been well, to my mind. But once you’ve created a situation where ALL students have to take AP American History, for example, whether or not they’re sufficiently proficient at essay writing (a very real phenom) to manage the course, or where ALL students have to take AP Calc, but did not receive sufficient precalc training, then the net result is great gaps in their respective knowledge bases OR the reality of having to slow down the material coverage in order to re-instruct the students, which then make the AP offering of lesser quality than intended, and more importantly, insufficiently preparatory for university level work. In this situation, one would be better to let a qualified university professor introduce him or her to the finer points of the study of advanced literature, and to have instead spent a little time in high school honing one’s writing skills. I guess that’s what I was driving at. And I guess what concerns me most about the apparent grade inflation is the old saying about standards: “If you bend, they’ll bend you.”</p>
<p>I have met and interviewed many graduates who have earned top honors and who have failed to demonstrate to me a wellspring of innovative, integrative analytical skills. Yet I have met others who possess and demonstrate extraordinary innate capabilities. My wish is that I could meet more in the middle : )</p>