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The class of 2012, for instance, failed nearly 1.3 million AP exams during their high school careers. Thats a lot of time and money down the drain; research shows that students dont reap any measurable benefit from AP classes unless they do well enough to pass the $89 end-of-course exam.
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<p>The AP Potential tool of the College Board shows a student's probability of getting a 3, 4, or 5 on an AP exam conditional on his or her PSAT scores.</p>
<p>I would disagree with the statement you quoted simply because it implies that all who fail reap no benefits. We had one of our kids with an LD take an AP class over a different choice because the AP class had a heavy writing component. This particular kid needed to improve his writing skills…which he did. He had no hope of passing the exam without extra time and accommodations and he had the choice to take it or not, with or without accommodations. He took it without accommodations simply to “test” himself. He “failed” but the gains he made from taking the class were great. The $89 is small change and you don’t have to report scores. He also took AP classes in his strength and passed with 4s and 5s. My son’s failure “dinged” the school record for that particular, but certainly did nothing but good for my son. Everyone went into this with “open eyes.”</p>
<p>This is an example of people deciding that if something is good for some everyone should benefit. We did it with mortgages, student loans and now AP courses. AP courses do more than give credits to kids for college, they also give those who are strong students the opportunity to challenge themselves. Pushing kids who are not ready and able to learn the material to take these classes is unnecessary and cruel. They would be better served by offering courses designed to prepare them for the rigors of college (if that is the students goal) than to encourage them to take courses that are college level. I fear that the next step is “dumbing down” the course work to make the lower performing students look more successful. This would benefit no one.</p>
<p>Honestly AP classes are the only thing that keep any semblance of rigor in high schools. We complain about a weak education system, and then we complain when too many people do badly on AP exams. Obviously there should be a significant number of people who get 1’s and 2’s and 3’s. Remember the bell curve; if everyone does well, there’s a problem with the test.</p>
<p>The growth in AP courses/tests may be due to the proliferation of “AP lite” courses/tests which are now being offered to high school frosh and soph students. Perhaps the high schools are issuing grades at high school standards (and may be quite inflated), which are lower than AP scoring standards, resulting in A in course with 1 on test.</p>
<p>However, that may also occur in the more traditional AP courses/tests, like calculus and foreign language, where such a thing may indicate poor quality of instruction in the high school, letting down the most advanced students there.</p>
<p>^Yes. The normal curve only applies to normed/scaled tests. In tests of mastery it is perfectly acceptable, and in fact desirable, for everyone to do well. I’m pretty sure that the AP exams are not normed/scaled.</p>
<p>However, as liberal as I normally am I am inclined to agree with the article. Not every student needs to take AP courses - that’s implied in the very name, “advanced placement.” They’re designed specifically for students who are advanced enough ahead of the regular high school curriculum that they’re ready for college-level courses. If you’re studying 8th-grade vocabulary, you’re not ready for AP classes.</p>
<p>So no, not every student should be taking them, and I don’t agree that second-language speakers from low-income households should have the same expectations put on them as wealthy students at elite private schools. That’s unfair to the students. Instead teachers should be attempting to prepare them for college or whatever their path after high school is at their own level. (and that goes for any student not yet ready for AP - regardless of race, gender, or economic class.)</p>
<p>Interesting to see Politico doing this story.</p>
<p>The amount of money down the drain being mentioned is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money the same kid will need to spend earning a real college credit at even a community college.</p>
<p>I will give one example of a school district and why many students fail.</p>
<p>One of the biggest school districts in Texas looked around and said we have a lot of students taking AP classes but only 70% taking the test. One of the reasons seemed to be the cost of taking the tests and so the district decided they will pay for all the tests but a student in an AP class is required to take the AP exam at the end of the year.</p>
<p>So they went from 11500 or so exams in 2009 to 23000 exams this year with a success rate of 34%. However, this rate was around 47% when they were not asking every student to take the test. The incremental benefit is not that high for an increased expense of $352 dollars a credit but if you look at a student having to spend a semester at college earning the same credit, it costs much more for the student. The school district has more than 50% qualifying for free lunches.</p>
<p>One other thing they will do along the way is to shore up weak AP programs or close some as not being rigorous enough but if the students are not taking the test, we would never know the AP- lites.</p>
<p>One other area which is not evaluated is the schools with the take the test requirement and how some 12th graders just don’t care about some of the tests they take knowing that the college they will attend does not care about those tests.</p>
<p>I have long felt that the AP system is broke and there is plenty of blame to go around. The High Schools who force kids to take the test if they take the class, who offer APs as the only alternative for College bound students, and who weigh APs too heavily in their GPA formulas. The colleges who demand the most rigorous course load forcing kids to take AP classes to gain admittance and then for the top tier don’t offer any college credit for passing the tests. The students who self study to get a ridiculous number of APs under their belt and compete with each other to have as many APs as they can or maybe can’t handle. Finally, the parents who buy into all of the above and foot the bill. I personally think that the only AP class which should be offered and which you should get credit for is Calculus ! I would be happy to throw out all of the other tests!</p>
<p>At my kids HS, kids routinely get C’s and B’s in AP classes and 5’s on AP exams! Still trying to decide if that’s good or bad?? I love that the kids do so well on the exams, but I think in a perfect world, a 5 on the exam should equate to an A in the course.</p>
<p>Yet when we talk STEM vs humanities, the STEM types seem to think that humanities classes are “easier” because the bulk of grades are A and B. maybe humanities teachers are better at getting their students to uniform mastery.</p>
<p>“One of my kids was in an AP U.S. History class where practically everyone got a 4 or 5 on the test. This is success, not failure.”</p>
<p>Yep, Marian, this was also true of the AP USH class my daughter took her junior year. They had a fantastic teacher who prepared them well for the test.</p>
<p>What it would indicate to me is that the standards for “mastery” need to increase. The course/test could go more in depth or breath. There is no AP test that tests all knowledge that could be considered in a subject. Increasing standards would be something that most of us call “progress.” </p>
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<p>This isn’t an issue. AP US History has only about 33% of students getting a 4 or 5 overall. The fact that everyone in this particular class got a 4 or 5 indicates some combination of the fact that the class is made up of good students and the teacher is a good teacher. What would you think if somehow nationally, everyone got a 4 or 5? </p>
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<p>This was the case in my high school Calc class. If you weren’t able to get a 5 on the test, you likely would have failed the class. It seemed a bit harsh at the time.</p>
<p>I don’t get Beliavsky’s train of thought here. He always puts forth that only those who have high chances of succeeding should try anything in the first place. But if only “brilliant” / highly advanced students took APs in the first place, then the results would be uniformly high and then they wouldn’t serve to distinguish the great from the greatest, which is something he’s advocated in terms of using APs as admissions criteria.</p>
You give a few random examples that maybe true for some cases and not others and then make a big jump to advocate abolishing AP tests altogether …
What happens to the 30, 40% of kids who can benefit from them ?</p>
<p>My son thought his HS Calc class was harsh also. He killed himself to get a B- in the class but had a 5 on the AP exam. When he met with his college advisor my son asked about taking Calc 1 because he only got a B- in the class. His college advisor told him that students who get a 5 on the AP exam are almost always successful in Calc 2 regardless of the grade their teacher gave them in HS.</p>
<p>To answer fire - my daughter is in the 30-40% who benefited - earned 28 credits from her college for her AP classes. I just feel that college classes should be taught in college not high school and that college credit should be earned in a college classroom not a high school classroom. If kids are too advanced in their knowledge for introductory classes - offer placement tests and put them where they belong when they enter the college (this is done very successfully with foreign languages.)</p>
<p>Sounds like my public magnet HS. Except it also extended to students not allowed to take AP courses because their overall/subject GPAs were too low. Yet they also got 4-5s on APs with some weeks of self-study before taking the AP exam. </p>
<p>While it can be harsh, it’s arguably better than coasting through high school with deceptively high HS grades only to hit the wall hard in one’s first semester/year in college because one wasn’t prepared for the greater rigor of academic work from actual college classes. Especially at a respectable/elite college.</p>