First HS teaching job?=AP Lang&Comp teacher replacement?

Parent Cafe
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<p>My son is enrolled in a co-taught AP US History/AP Lang and Comp class that has typically provided an extremely academically rigorous and a great learning opportunity for juniors in our HS. Unfortunately, this class --up until last week--has only been taught by one of the two assigned teachers as the second teacher appeared to teach only a relatively few times this marking period prior to his apparent resignation last week. The students have not had any work assigned to them for this class and no grades recorded with only a few weeks left in the marking period. </p>

<p>The school has hired a teacher to replace the one that resigned who has never taught a full year of high school English and has --per what we have gleaned from online postings--has dabbled in teaching varied age ranges prior to earning a masters in teaching last year. </p>

<p>The school sees no problems with this decision and has no plans (that they are inclined to share with either parents or students) for making up for the lost instructional time. They do plan to have this new teacher 'speak' with another teacher who has taught AP Lang and Comp sometime this week but that's pretty much it....</p>

<p>From what I've gleaned from the AP website, they impose no restrictions/guidelines on the school's selection of teachers for AP classes or on the actual course outline. The AP program does, however, reference the premium that they place on making sure that the instructional process and content of a given course is consistent with that of a college level class and, more particularly, with the instructional objectives outlined for each course. </p>

<p>Wondering if anyone has any information or experience with something like this. Is it worth spending the time trying to find someone within the AP program who would care that a course listed on their ledger of approved classes has... consisted of lots of wonderful AP US History instruction but not a bit of Lang and Comp assigned work and is now being taught by someone who is focused on having students devote instructional time to 'role playing' the books that they have read and on instructing them on themes unrelated to the actual books that they have read? Or not...any input would be greatly appreciated.</p>

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<p>I would just like to say that apush and AP lang really do intermingle a lot! I took them back to back and on some days I would find myself reading the same speech or paper for both classes. This helped AP tests (5’s). If your son is worried I would say try to find writing from the time periods and analyze them for political, economic, and social factors and rhetorical devices used for argument. Good luck, seems like a fun class–before the new teacher situation of course.</p>

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<p>This is a pet peeve of mine…the assignment of brand new teachers to AP courses. At our school, there were several new AP teachers last year…AP scores in those courses tanked. For example, in AP econ, they got a new teacher to replace a fantastic educator who moved into administration. The new teacher (football coach) has never taught honors/AP courses before. The kids who are taking the AP course just to have an AP course on their transcripts to get an Honors Diploma love the class…they say it is the most fun they’ve ever had in class. Those kids who care about actually learning the material and scoring well on the AP course agreed that it was a fun class, but then went on to say that they didn’t learn a thing…</p>

<p>We have the same problem with AP Physics…out of all of the kids who took the AP exam, they only had one 5 and that student taught himself the material. The majority received 3 or lower.</p>