"Advanced Placement? Prove it"

Parents Forum
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<p>The CB's first massive AP Course Audit review process is starting to be felt by schools across the country. As of January 2007, the College Board has contracted with the Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC), a not-for-profit organization based at the University of Oregon, to coordinate the nation-wide AP Course Audit submission and review process.</p>

<p><a href="http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/ap...ner/51268.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/ap...ner/51268.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
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Ambitious students in North Jersey's high schools have long flocked to Advanced Placement courses, but for the first time ever, their teachers have to prove their classes are as rigorous as the prestigious AP label promises.</p>

<p>The College Board launched the first massive AP audit after college and high school educators complained that too many schools slapped the AP label on courses that weren't sophisticated enough to make the grade. Last week, teachers in North Jersey and nationwide began submitting evidence that their classes truly cover college-level material.</p>

<p>Officials at the College Board, which runs the AP program, said they have heard of bogus pretenders such as AP Band, AP Journalism and AP Oklahoma History...</p>

<p>Andrew Dunn, who teaches AP English at Northern Highlands Regional High School, says he met a North Dakota teacher who assigned George Orwell's "Animal Farm" for an AP class. That book would be read in a regular 10th- to 12th-grade course at Northern Highlands. Dunn said the audit process will have value mainly if it persuades more colleges to give students college credit for work they've done in high school.</p>

<p>"We've been seeing over the last few years that some of our best students aren't getting college credit after they do take the AP exams," he said. "It's some of the more elite institutions that aren't granting the credit."</p>

<p>Robert Goodman, who teaches AP physics at the Bergen County Technical High School at Teterboro, welcomed the audit, but thought it would be easier to require all students in AP classes to take AP exams. That would force teachers to cover the necessary material. "If you don't take the exams but slap the label on transcripts who's to say what's in a course?" he noted. "I know specifically of cases where students taking courses called AP physics are studying things that have nothing to do with the AP curriculum."</p>

<p>The College Board says 74 percent of students in AP courses take the final exams.</p>

<p>The outcome will be key to motivated students, who love to pepper their college applications with APs to show their academic zeal.

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<p><a href="http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?...cWVlRU%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?...cWVlRU&lt;/a> V5eTQ=</p>

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<p>I agree with Robert Goodman that requiring students to take the exam will keep the teachers & administrators honest.</p>

<p>I find it funny that the Northern Highlands teacher would look down his nose at Animal Farm. Surely the book could be explored at several different levels! It appears on my 5th grader's summer reading list as an option. I think that's crazy, as he has no idea what totalitarianism is, nor does he understand the history of the Soviet Union. But certainly the book and its lessons would fit in well in a college curriculum.</p>

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<p>It's interesting to note that many colleges now only give credit for a score of 4 or 5 on the AP's, and this is not just the selective schools, either. Many state uni's and lesser known schools are curtailing the number of AP credits they'll accept from a student, as well as insisting on scores above 3 on most exams to attain college credit.</p>

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<p>Students who get a 3 probably shouldn't get college credit, especially in a subject that might serve as a prerequisite for more advanced courses.</p>

<p>When my son took his AP tests, he felt confident that he knew most of the material on three out of the four tests. And he was right. He got scores of 4 on all three tests. But the day he took the AB Calculus test, he came home and said, "Mom, I don't care what score I get. I'm taking this course over in college. There were too many topics on the exam that I was unsure of." He got a 3 on that test (and he took the course over).</p>

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<p>The audit process is a good idea, the local schools do a good overall job in teaching AP classes that prepare students for passing the AP exams, this gives the administration some muscle in insuring that the AP teachers get the training they need and teach the courses as intended- funding and teacher union issues will have to yield to any improvements; since the program is good enough I doubt it would be dropped because of audit findings. It should help kids get what they're supposed to be getting from their schools, hopefully schools will improve where needed and not merely keep the same weak courses under other labels.</p>

<p>Some schools do offer AP classes in some subjects and Advanced in others to be able to teach the material they wish, telling the kids what information they need to learn on their own to do well on the AP exam; this is a nice option- some subjects such as math and chemistry lend themselves to a required curriculum, whereas biology can be better without adhering to the AP format and prepare a student equally well for college classes. Getting AP credit for English lit/lang can free up college electives, it does unfortunately limit the material for teachers since there are so many excellent different literary sources available to give the same skills. One can also argue that students usually get a better course in college for every AP subject and should take them there- but then the students either end up repeating a lot of material learned in high school by taking AP or other advanced classes or are bored with lower level material in high school, as well as probably not taking some of the subjects in college they fill their high school time slots with.</p>

<p>If you consider a 5=A, 4=B and 3=C, plus AP courses represent an average (or less) college class it is no wonder colleges only give specific course credit for 4 and 5 scores, and general credit for a 3. You can also understand why some colleges do not give any AP credits or limit the number of credits- they want the degree they award to reflect the caliber of courses they offer. One reason I find it upsetting that my state is/wants to give university transfer credits for tech school courses of lesser caliber. It is important to remember the knowledge gained is more important than the credits acquired; AP is one way of dealing with the current educational system. It makes for a very different approach to college courses than in my day.</p>

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<p>I think that the audit is a good idea--in my experience, AP classes are very worthwhile, though undoubtedly imperfect courses. The audit will force some teachers to do better in teaching the material--I know that my Microeconomics teacher made the class somewhat more rigorous and better in the face of the audit (he admitted that he had been neglecting the free response section somewhat in the past). I understand reservations about "teaching to the test", but the good part of the test is that it makes it much harder to neglect important material, or else AP scores will suffer and people will wonder what's up. Of course, you have to take the test first...it is hard to justify forcing kids to take it, since the tests are so expensive, but from my observation the weaker AP classes at my school are the ones where few people take the test (like AP Enviornmental, for example), and those would be the classes that you might be least sure of the quality of. </p>

<p>On a seperate note, I am inclined to agree with Marian about AP credit...as decent as it is, every person that I have known who has earned a 3 really did not have that great of a grasp of the material (especially in bread and butter type AP courses like BC Calc and Euro/US where we really were well prepared). Plus, as my father often says to me, "You (royal you) are not going to a top school and not taking an English (whatever subject) course. You are just going to be placed into a harder course that matches your ability". That is how I have always viewed AP courses, and how, in general, I believe they ought to be viewed--as vehicles to learn at a higher level, both now and in the future.</p>

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<p>"It appears on my 5th grader's summer reading list as an option. I think that's crazy, as he has no idea what totalitarianism is, nor does he understand the history of the Soviet Union. But certainly the book and its lessons would fit in well in a college curriculum."</p>

<p>I read Animal Farm in an honors 8th grade class. I thought that was pretty appropriate, but even then, I had no idea that the falling 'windmill' represented the destruction of the Russian economy. It did however give me a good idea of what symbolism was, and how to look for it, but still, it would have been better to read a not-so-political book. </p>

<p>We also watched Joe vs. The Volcano...that was a good class.</p>

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<p>I think Animal Farm is routinely assigned as 9th grade reading around here. My kids both insisted on reading the book on their own at a much younger age -- my daughter was a very advance reader who probably read the book before she was 10. But don't worry, StickerShock, their dad is a Soviet history buff who gave them more context toward understanding the symbolism than anyone would care to know. (The kids are used to the fact that if they ask their dad a simple history question, they are likely to get a 3 hour lecture -- it came in handy in high school whenever they had to write an essay.)</p>

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<p>^^</p>

<p>haha, my dad's like that with anything relating to engineering or science. I asked him once how a lunar eclipse worked...he talked for about an hour.</p>

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<p>Informally, there already is an "audit" like situation. Highschools that have AP classes and have few kids take the exam or do well if they do tak the exam are noted. Top schools know that kids taking all APs as seniors at such school are unlikely to do well on the exams given prior history. Such kids need to have done other college level work, or have excelled in APs in junior year, to show that they are indeed capable of high level work. </p>

<p>The benefit of a formal process is that everyone will know about it. Right now there are many families unaware that their school AP program is bogus.</p>

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<p>Yes, the school AP program can be bogus - with teachers that haven't a clue
how to present college-level material. Certainly, this isn't fair to the students.</p>

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<p>Are there statistics out there as to how many of the "elite institutions" don't offer any AP credit? As a parent I was so suprised that my son didn't receive any AP credit(he had 5's on AP Calculus and AP Physics) or any credit for college courses taken in high school and is in fact repeating those courses this year.</p>

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<p>I went to an inner city school and took the English AP class - the only one offered in the Dark Ages. At that time, it was incredibly difficult to get a 4 or 5, and was thrilled to get a 3 on the test. (Our teacher was excellent, but I know of only one 4 from our school, the test was that difficult - she went Vassar, which in 1970 was a really big deal!) I received one semester credit, took second semester, (it was my major) and it was no tougher than my AP class. In fact, I used my old notes, etc., and aced the class. I remember reading Heart of Darkness, analyzing it with Karl Jung's psychology, and more heady stuff. I still remember Mrs. Wulf and the awesome job she did of getting us to think and analyze. I don't know if she followed the curriculum, but the other classes weren't reading what we were, so I assume she was. But whether she was or wasn't, I learned more that year that I used in college than any other course I ever took in college, except for the teacher in History (Honors) who was working on his PH.D., and had us reading supplemental materials that we could only obtain at the college bookstore. Inner city??? It didn't matter. AP? In one case it mattered, in the other it didn't. Each taught us as if we were being prepared for college. That's what matters.</p>

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<p>IF the school didn't have Animal Farm on its list for other classes, or the teacher felt it was an important enough book for every high schoolers to read, and it was missed by the time they got to the AP Class, well let him/her teach it!!!</p>

<p>Just because a book is tuaght in "regular" classes doesn't mean AP kids should not read it as well..egad, what is the thinking there</p>

<p>the book may have been done quickly and may have been in sync with other books of the same theme</p>

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<p>this is why I don't like ONE group of people deciding on a narrow range of books to read....if all the kids are forced to read the same books, when they get to college the knoweldge base is narrower and less discussion of other literature, thus actually HURTING the study of literature </p>

<p>to me, if kids from all over come together and have read a large variety of books, they can share and compare, but if everyone has read the same 50...that does know one any good</p>

<p>however, there are some classics that should be explored</p>

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<p>Not getting CREDIT for AP courses is unremarkable--after all, the original meaning of "P" in "AP" was PLACEMENT. The idea was that certain prep school students who didn't get into the most elite colleges found out that they were repeating work that they had already done in high school when they went to college. So the testing system developed, beginning in the 1950s, to provide guidance for appropriate class placement for students from strong high schools. Now more high schools want to offer nonwimpy classes, which I think is great, but it is still entirely up to colleges to decide whether or not to give credit for previous course work done by high school students. (At the most elite colleges, the typical practice is NOT to give credit for anything done in high school, but always to place students in appropriate classes. Some colleges have formal programs for advanced standing </p>

<p><a href="http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Efdo/publications/advancedstanding0607/general.htm#3%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Efdo/publications/advancedstanding0607/general.htm#3&lt;/a> </p>

<p>and some do not.) </p>

<p>What course levels colleges equate to AP tests from their own curriculum is determined, with the colleges having the final call, based on validation studies the College Board does from time to time, in which real, live college students take AP tests and have their college course grades compared to their AP test scores. College courses vary, some being much easier than an AP course and some being harder, even if they are about "the same subject."</p>

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<p>I am amazed at the lack of rigor in my local high school's AP English (Grammar/Comp) class, which is offered to juniors. The first semester, they read the same 4 books as the regular junior English classes --- Animal Farm, The Crucible, Of Mice & Men, and ... not sure the last ... The semester final consisted of an at-home essay related to the books and a multiple choice in-class test of 100 questions, 25 per book, asking the kind of questions designed to see if they read the books (not questions relating to literary devices or anything "advanced"). While appropriate essay-type readings are offered & the assignments related to those readings are pretty good --- the papers submitted by the students show a complete lack of understanding of the writing process --- bad thesis statements, terrible topic sentences, lack of supporting evidence from the readings (and, in the event it's actually offered, no citation is made). No practice AP tests have been given to date. To be honest, it's an honors class with an AP designation. The teacher has stated that many students in the class are there simply to get the AP class on their transcript. They don't plan to take the test. </p>

<p>To some extent, colleges invite this type of thinking. Admissions officers flat out state that they don't care what the student gets on the AP exam --- what is important to them is that the student challenges himself by taking the AP course. But is that always a good assumption? Schools can get away with offering something called AP that is not really AP ... and when adcoms look at a school's profile, only the best students will have taken the exam, so the stats for the school will look better than they would if all students taking the class were required to take the exam. We do our students a disservice if we actually let them think the class they are taking is college-level if it isn't. They are going to be in for a rude awakening when they take a REAL college class!</p>

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<p>George Orwell was one of the finest writers in the English language. His essays remain models of clear prose style. It's all very well to teach lit crit by focussing on symbolism (English profs need to buy their kids shoes), and Animal Farm is a good vehicle for that task. But pleeez let's not stop there. Teaching "English," AP or otherwise, should aim for clear, honest communication. See Orwell's masterful essay, "Politics and the English Language."</p>

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<p>Oaklandmom, I don't know of any such list, but many colleges limit AP course credits in ways that it may be not be advantageous or even possible for a student to make use of them. Some schools have a complex matrix as to what credits at what score are usable for what. I have seen credits given for a subject if the student is NOT a major for that particular field, or not for specific courses, just to satisfy general fill in type credits. They may allow acceleration into courses but not give credits. It gets confusing when the kid changes majors, as that can realign his required credits. Many also just limit how many credits they will allow a student to accumulate from AP.</p>

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<p>
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See Orwell's masterful essay, "Politics and the English Language."

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<p>I was lucky to have a high school textbook about expository writing that quoted that essay in its entirety. Yes, everyone should read what Orwell wrote about how to write English.</p>