<p>I do not like the IB, but I think it does have its place in a number of institutions. I do not like the impact a program such as the IB has on the schools where it has been seen as the last possibility to hide the problems. But I have written enough about that in the past! </p>
<p>As far as the AP, it does not have to be reinvented as much as it should be reverted to its past glory when the program was unveiled. It should be redesigned to comply with its lofty ambitions of yesterday. </p>
<p>The AP should be a much smaller program, and its impact on our schools and colleges should be dramatically curbed. In fact, the AP should be relegated to a system that closely resembles the current Subject Tests, which should be eliminated and reinvented through an extended SAT test that would, in turn, only be offered during the school year. Simply stated, the AP and the SAT should be flipped around, with the AP becoming an out of school affair … which is is mostly anyway! </p>
<p>And last but not least, do people REALLY want the College Board to establish a national curriculum … anymore than we’d want their European “counterpart” to do?</p>
<p>PS Unfortunately, all the criticisms of the AP will not create any changes until the colleges and universities adopt new policies to reduce the role of APs. Positive policies should dramatically reduce the credits and eliminate the AP from admissions decisions. </p>
<p>All in all, fat chance to see that happen. We probably will hit fifty AP before we will realize how bad that explosion truly was.</p>
<p>Sure. In the selective college, one needs to get 90 percent of the points correct to get an A. In the 4th tier college, one needs to get 50 percent of the points correct to get an A, because the test is curved to its audience: no professor gets away with flunking half his class and stays employed for very long.</p>
<p>LoremIspum - I must have missed something - I didn’t see anything in the excerpt from the study that addressed grading of exams, but rather the “level” of exam questions offered.</p>
So if the AP course prepares you just as well for Harvard as it does for Podunk State, who cares about this topic?</p>
<p>(I’ll just add–although it may seem obnoxious–anybody who has actually attended a top college after going to high school with students who were headed for less selective colleges will observe that the quoted statement is nonsense.)</p>
<p>I think the College Board and IB have both set up a better national curriculum than most states have. Could the tests be better? Sure, but they could be a lot worse too! They are better than Regent’s tests and a lot better than tests in many other states.</p>
That’s a good question. Would it be better or worse than what the Texas school book authority comes up with? As is often the case, we want things both ways–we want local schools–even individual teachers–to have the freedom to teach their own way, but we also want our kids to meet tough national standards. As long as we get to choose what those standards are. Etc.</p>
<p>The questions may not be harder, but the answers they expect may be different - something else that the study doesn’t addressed.</p>
<p>I can only compare German 1 at Harvard vs Pasadena Community College. While it covered the same amount of grammar in both courses, we ended up with a lot more vocabulary and practice seeing the language used outside a textbooks, since we had to read a mystery novel, by a well-respected writer.</p>
<p>Is this unique to Texas public universities?</p>
<p>It does appear that University of Texas students have the option of claiming AP and dual enrollment credit by petition (but, once claimed, it cannot be unclaimed). So your daughter may want to claim only the AP and dual enrollment credit which is immediately useful for subject credit or placement (i.e. not claim any which would just be free elective units, unless she is about to graduate and just needs a few more free elective units).</p>
<p>It does specifically state warn about excess credit issues for claiming credit for courses not applicable to one’s degree plan, and that there is no need to rush to claim credit.</p>
<p>McCauley (the author) takes a longitudinal study of students, pulling out as independent variables participation in AP and/or dual enrollment, gender, race, and low income status. The dependent variable is college graduation within six years of college enrollment. His conclusions:</p>
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<p>No surprises there. McCauley suggests further study that looks at students’ academic ability, possibly using SAT or ACT scores. That’s difficult, because student confidentiality makes it difficult to access this data and because data would need to be connected between college and high school. The author stresses that understanding if AP and/or dual enrollment programs are effective in preparing students for college success has practical implications for school systems. So the study that I’d really like to read hasn’t been written yet. :)</p>
<p>She’s not going to UT blech. Rival school. Actually UT is a great school - but no, she’s not going there. I don’t know if there are other states doing this or not. It is definitely a state-wide thing.</p>
<p>The literature I saw for her college said that even if you do not “use” the credit - it still counts. Basically ALL college hours attempted count, including AP and dual.</p>
<p>What you are talking about was actually my point. We didn’t KNOW early on what her major would be or where she would be going to school, had we known, we might have been better equipped to target taking certain classes over others. For example, she would have taken AP Physics or Physics I & II at the CC earlier - and not wind up stuck with Chemistry, which is liable not to help her. The way the HS classes are structured and the equivalency for AP and Dual they offer is not particularly helpful to her in the long run. </p>
<p>We plan on meeting with an adviser at her University to help her determine what credits she should accept and which ones she should not.</p>
<p>I DID read somewhere that even though the student “can be” “may be” charged at a higher rate for over 39 hours, that it is seldom actually applied - at least so far. I think they’re trying to discourage the “career student”.</p>
<p>xiggi: The article in Harvard Gazzette begins with - “AP classes give a lot to the top students, but pouring money into the program and trying to give every student an AP education is not efficient or effective,” </p>
<p>I think, as a teacher who teaches these courses, it definitly benifit the elite students. I have seen students who breeze through the HL materials in IB or AP Materials in calculus or physics. Such students are self motivated and often presenting the materials in a regular AP/IB class lead them to indulge in further self study. </p>
<p>Now, I agree that there are lot of people being pushed by parents, school, peer pressure etc to such programs. It is a problem, but it is not the problem of AP or IB, it is the problem of people involved. To just discard an enrichment program like AP because people do not know how to make the best out of such programs is really amazing to me.</p>
<p>Slithey- Yay! A cc drinking game!! Agree that there are certain things here that can defititely drive one to drink!!</p>
<p>As for the cranky folks who are convinced the retention rates are higher at some of the “better” schools (for lack of a better word) because the students are socially promoted and their hands held through the academic process, there is evidence otherwise.
<p>Could there be another alternative for such students? An area of confusion here is that the AP courses are de facto the most challenging a high school could offer.</p>
<p>Why not simply let entering students take a competency exam for the intro level classes at the college they matriculate to see if they can exempt them and register for a higher level class (and give them credit for the one they are skipping, if possible). Then it won’t matter what class they took in HS or elsewhere.</p>
Actually UT is a great school - but no, she’s not going there. I don’t know if there are other states doing this or not. It is definitely a state-wide thing.</p>