Impending Significant Change in AP Tests

<p>My French teacher told me that the French test is going to test less nitpicky elements of grammar and more contextual usage… Too bad it’s too late for me. ;)</p>

<p>Reading an announcement about possible changes the AP always brings some trepidation. Could it be that the College Board might announce a most welcome series of DRASTIC CUTS in the size and reach of this abomination of a program? Could it be that the College Board might finally relegate the AP to a series of Saturday testing and find something better to do than wasting two weeks of HS instruction? Of course, with a link going to the Washington Post and specifically to its Education-Moron-in-Chief, aka the IB/AP master cheerleader, all hopes for a GOOD story are quickly dashed. </p>

<p>The article is typical Mathews’ fodder: </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Of course, we should not expect the creator of the utterly misguided “guide” of “best HS in the US” to understand that the AP was not designed to be a “vital part” of the admission process and that its creators never anticipated the tests to be used for anything else than to offer advanced PLACEMENT. </p>

<p>Neither should we expect this Washington writer to focus more on the education atrocities committed in the Dictrict of Columbia than on the sheltered suburban life of Virginia where the discussions are about the merits of AP versus IB. Does it matter to this unapologetic elitist that the AP programs does not do a darn thing for the majority of the students, and especially nothing to increase the education level of 75 to 90% of the students in our K-12! </p>

<p>The fact that “the AP program has such a tight grip on the school curriculums” should not be celebrated … it is nothing short of a crime perpetrated on the overwhelming majority of our students. The only program that does more to segregate students than the AP is the IB program with its clear attempt to create a school within a school. A modified version of a quasi-private school within the confines of our public education, where the best teachers can teach the best students, all the while turning their back on the students that require more attention and good pedagogy. </p>

<p>A crying shame! We do not a deeper AP program since nothing will ever elevate it to a true college course. What we need is a high school that is true high school, and not some kind of hybrid between an elementary school and a remedial community college. High school should let the colleges be colleges and focus on educating --and graduating–every one of their students with a basic set of skills that include reading, writing, and understanding 9th grade math. We surely do not need a public school high school with 40 AP classes, a full IB program and an average below 500 on each part of the SAT.</p>

<p>^ Thank you Xiggi! EXACTLY my perception as well…but said in a way I could not.</p>

<p>I agree vehemently with xiggi.</p>

<p>There are good things about AP, IB and dual enrollment. </p>

<p>In particular, AP and IB provide some outside standards. In Oklahoma, there are state end-of-instruction exams in just a few (7) courses (Alg I, Alg II, Geometry, English II, English III, Biology I, and US History). Of those tests, a student only has to pass 4 (2 must be English II and Algebra I) to graduate. Outside of those courses, there’s not much accountability at all for course content. School report cards tend to focus on EOI scores and ACT scores.</p>

<p>There are plenty of students who come to the local community college from the local urban school district with good grades and high level courses, but who place into remedial math and writing; local standards clearly aren’t enough. The AP exam scoring gives an indication of whether the course actually is of the appropriate difficulty.</p>

<p>Or, you could have a situation like I did in high school. Our high school US History course was supposed to be a 2nd half US History course, more or less 1877 to the present. The “best” history teacher at my high school spent almost all the first semester on reconstruction. By the end of the second semester, we were at the prelude to WWI. That’s where our study of US History ended. The course was by no means easy, but it didn’t cover enough content for a survey course. The teacher was well known and no one dared to question him. AP scores would have been a “neutral party” evaluating the course.</p>

<p>Did you know that some school districts consider the 4th year of foreign language the AP level? And that others consider the 5th year of language the AP level? And in still others it’s the 6th year? Obviously, it’s not the number of years of class that matter as much as reaching the expected level of ability. The AP Exam validates that. </p>

<p>I also don’t think we need to apologize for teaching the best students appropriately. </p>

<p>If at all possible, it’s better that students not face their first real academic challenge when they’re away at college – it’s better to encounter that challenge for the first time in the more supportive environment of a high school and while living at home. For many students, AP classes are that challenge.</p>

<p>My daughter’s school offers only regular and AP/pre-AP classes (for example, the 400+ sophomores can take English II or pre-AP English II. Juniors can take English III or AP English Language). Remove the AP designation and they’d find some other way to split the students into some rough ability groups (there aren’t any formal admissions standards for the AP classes and anyone can sign up, so it’s not the dreaded “tracking”).</p>

<p>There are plenty of problems with the AP program/exams, but I’d hate to see it go without any idea of what might replace it.</p>

<p>I’m wondering what’s going on in your schools’ APUSH classes. In my corresponding American History class we were constantly comparing traditional and revisionist interpretations of events in American history, including the civil war, and just thought that the AP classes were doing the same.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I disagree. One thing that AP and IB courses provide is a standardized curriculum that allows colleges to assess how a student performs in comparison to peers. If every high school is coming up with its own curriculum, it’s going to be very difficult to actually determine how much a student was challenged. The AP courses essentially follow the same curriculum and how a student does in L.A. can be compared more easily to a student in Chicago than a student in a course whose title communicates nothing to a college admissions officer. The AP and IB programs create some parity within high school education for high-achieving students. And I would add that many of the AP courses at our high school are widely known to be more rigorous than many of the courses at our non-remedial community college.</p>

<p>True standardization is only happening if everyone is taking AP exams and schools are getting similar distributions of scores. I think there is a lot of “AP packaging” and not a lot of “AP achievement” going on…</p>

<p>xiggi, I think you let your rhetoric get away with you sometimes.</p>

<p>I agree completely with you that AP courses are not college courses. I also agree that many high schools are failing. However, </p>

<p>(a) There are just as many, perhaps more, high schools that are NOT failing, where the average SAT segment score is well above 500, and where most of the students mastered 9th grade math in 7th grade. Those kids deserve an education, too. As do the kids like that in the “bad” schools.</p>

<p>(b) Here in Philadelphia, it is obvious how important it is to the social and political fabric of the city to keep middle-class, good-student kids in the public school system, rather than forcing them into private or Catholic schools. If the public school system doesn’t offer a challenging curriculum and a shot at Penn or Harvard, they’re gone, and with them will go a lot of civic glue and engagement by the citizenry with the school system. Sometimes I think that’s part of what you want to see happen, but I don’t.</p>

<p>(c) I don’t know what to think myself, but I know that it’s not only Jay Mathews who strongly believes that AP or IB standards have a lot to offer in improving the education of kids who are not at the top of the education heap. Paul Vallas, for example – now the superintendent in New Orleans, lately of Chicago and Philadelphia – believes strongly in them. Maybe he’s wrong, too . . . but I’ll take his track record with troubled school districts over yours.</p>

<p>(d) As I understand it (from talking with the IB people), the IB program was never designed to be a school-within-a-school, and they think that it’s far less successful when it’s done on that basis. It’s common here, for several reasons: AP entrenchment, the cost of retraining teachers and setting up the IB courses, IB getting a foot in the door as a pilot project. There’s nothing inherently separatist about the IB curriculum, and they promote it as a whole-school thing.</p>

<p>Xiggi:</p>

<p>It seems that your main criticism of the AP curriculum is the claim that AP classes are college level classes. And with that criticism, I would agree.
Having said that, I think that, under whatever name we choose to give more advanced classes, there is a crying need for them in American high schools. I was stunned to learn, upon coming to the US, that my baccalaureat could have allowed me to begin as a sophomore. In other words, the standard 12th grade education in the typical American high school was not the equivalent of the typical 12th grade education in France (let’s set aside for the moment that a huge proportion of French students fail the bac the first time they take it).
The AP program tries to do two things (at least) that are not entirely connected: provide a more challenging set of courses and provide a uniform yardstick across schools. Because of the way tests are devised in this country, teaching to the test is very different from the kind of tests administered for A-levels, baccalaureat or German Arbitur (all of which qualify for Advanced Standing).
To give an example: for history, we had to write an essay (I can’t remember how much time we had for that) and have an oral exam. We did not have multiple choice questions (I’d never encountered any until I came here). This kind of format forced students to synthesize and present arguments supported by evidence; this way of teaching is more similar to what a student would encounter in college (at least those I am familiar with).
If AP courses move in that direction, I’m all for it.
As for criticisms that the quality of AP courses vary greatly from school to school, having a national curriculum does not mean that the quality of teaching is the same across schools and teachers. My brother sends his daughters to a private school with a 100% bac pass rate because his local public high school has only a 30% pass rate. The curriculum is the same in the two schools (“if it’s Tuesday October 6, at 9am, all French tenth graders must be reading chapter 3 of the Petit Lavisse history textbook” or some such).
Much as I disliked the test-driven character of the AP courses my Ss took, I deeply appreciated that they were available for my Ss to take. And neither sought college credit for their APs.</p>

<p>Quote:
<<
True standardization is only happening if everyone is taking AP exams and schools are getting similar distributions of scores. I think there is a lot of “AP packaging” and not a lot of “AP achievement” going on… </p>

<br>

<br>

<p>And that’s one of the places where Jay Matthews gets it wrong. He measures tests taken and not scores received. So, that encourages schools to up the number of kids taking the exams without necessarily upping the number who are prepared for the exam. (He explains why he calculates things that way, but I don’t buy it.)</p>

<p>The AP readers say they can tell when they get to a school that pays for the exams (instead of the student paying) because they get a lot of blank free-response questions and/or drawings or just random writings. I don’t think that anyone gets any benefit from the exam being blown off like that.</p>

<p>I would guess you’d never get true standardization of the score distribution. All schools don’t have the same distribution of students as far as ability, background, etc. The top prep schools and most selective publics are always going to be at the top. The goal, though, should be to bring the non-selective urban publics and the rural schools up to the level of the suburban schools.</p>

<p>Even with the same set of students, the score distributions would still not be the same since not every teacher is as effective as every other and not every school has the same kind of resources. That’s true in college, too, though.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>This is misunderstanding the meaning of standardization. The curriculum is standardized and thus enables colleges to evaluate applicants from all over the country and from wildly different schools using the same yardstick–scores- and knowing that said scores reflect the degree of mastery of a particular set of materials. This is unlike GPAs which reflect very different grading practices for courses whose contents colleges are mostly unfamiliar with (what did students in different schools read for Senior English? for instance? How much writing was there…)
Standardization of outcome (similar distribution of scores) would necessitate standardization of students and teachers. I don’t think it’s going to happen. :)</p>

<p>At our high school, the teachers take great personal pride in the scores. Our school is ranked very high in our district for AP scores – which are reported by schools to the district. Within the school, the teachers take pride within their departments about scores. At Back to School Night, son’s AP World History had his pass rate up on the board – about 30 percent higher than the national pass rate. The students agree to take the test when they sign on for the course, the teachers do their best to prepare them and the results show that combined effort. I do think it’s important for students to take the exam because it is the best feedback of how well a teacher is teaching the course.</p>

<p>I would love to see changes in the AP French exam before my 2013 D takes it. I know there was a petition signed by many high school French teachers to change it, when the Spanish exam was changed I was told it became easier to pass. My D got a 2 on the French AP, then took her college placement exam and was able to skip 4 semesters of French.</p>

<p>(While our HS usually requires that the test be taken for AP classes, there is the option to take AP French class as dual enrollment, skipping the test. Consequently, the teacher does not prepare the kids well for the AP test. My D was aware of this, and did not do enough on her own to prepare. If all the kids took the test, parents would be pushing for more adequate preparation I’m sure.)</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Marite, is it possible that you just did what I do so often when my mind thinks faster than I type … resulting in dropped words? In this case, I’d like to add that I hope you agree with me that “AP classes are NOT college level classes.”</p>

<p>Inasmuch as I do not want to give new life to the entire debate about AP versus IB or the role of such programs in our high schools, I want to make clear that I am far from opposed to raising the standards of our curriculum, and especially seeing a clearer and smoother alignment between middle school and college. I simply do not think that the cornucopia of AP offers much of an answer. I also think that the explosion of AP courses with limited value and appeal is yet another step in the wrong direction, and is fueled entirely by ulterior motives of an organization that has too many masters to please --and none of them being the students aka the consumers. </p>

<p>I do remember the example of your family in France. A passing rate of 30% on the Bac is indeed alarming. On the other hand, if the recent statistics are true, well above 80% of all french lycee-goers do pass the much dreaded test. Although the type of grading of the test disallows it to be considered a standardized test, I believe that it reflects the value of imposing a COMPREHENSIVE standardized test to all the students. We know that the PSAT, ACT, and SAT are standardized but not comprehensive, and thus are not good candidates. However, the AP tests are much worse candidates. </p>

<p>As far as the difference in performance and preparation among countries, there are sufficient international tests that confirm that the gap between the US and the rest of the industrialized world is widening. A Nation at Risk … is a true today as it was 25 years ago. </p>

<p>I remain steadfast in my belief that the AP tests should be offered in the manner that the SAT is currently given, and not be allowed to monopolize two weeks of classes in May. In turn, a revamped and vastly expanded combined SAT/SAT2 program should be offered in May of the Junior year and in October of the Senior Year for students who missed the first session. One national test. One trial and one “repechage.” That is IT! </p>

<p>And for the people who want to accumulate AP trophies, they’d have four years and plenty of Saturdays!</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Perhaps a dumb question, but how would this differ much from the current AP curriculum? For example, to score well on the Bio subject test, a student will have to have slogged through some edition of the 1,000 page Campbell’s text. And the AP course does the same, but throws in “labs.” (I put labs in quotes bcos the AP labs in our HS aren’t even close to the labs at the local juco, but our kids score plenty of 5’s.)</p>

<p>Xiggi:
I meant to say that you objected to other people’s claim that AP courses are like college courses, not that you claimed they are!</p>

<p>As for the 80% pass rate of the Bac, that is because a huge proportion of the students are allowed to leave school after 9th grade; not to drop out completely but to go on to vocational training. The 100% pass rate at my nieces’ prestigious lycee is due to to things:
–a rigorous entrance exam
–the retention of 1/3 of the 10th graders so they do not go on to take the first part of the bac at the end of the 11th grade before they have been made to repeat the whole 10th grade curriculum and only the strongest students are allowed to take the exam. By this logic, even at the most rigorously selective private lycee, the pass rate would be 60%.
Many French students take the bac multiple times.
I agree that the APs should not take up two weeks of instruction, especially for those students who need it most–i.e., the non-AP test takers. I agree, too, that the explosion of APs is ridiculous. And finally, I agree that as a nation, we lag behind other countries in terms of curricular rigor and educational achievements.
I happened to be talking to someone who is doing research on Chinese education just two days ago. She is amused by the American fixation on large classes as an important factor in under-achievement. In China, she claimed (and others around her agreed), it is not unusual to see 80 students in a single class in the best high schools: they are the ones that every family wants to send their kids to. The schools that have smaller class sizes are the under-chosen ones.</p>

<p>My kids have a hard enough time getting written assignments back from teachers in classes with 30 kids (of course, the teacher may have 5 or 6 classes of 30 kids). Eighty kids in a class? Who grades their papers?</p>

<p>^I don’t know. But the math/science curriculum in China is far more demanding than the curriculum for the corresponding grade in the US.</p>

<p>I recently talked to a young Vietnamese girl who is spending the year here, in 8th grade. Although her English is not quite idiomatic (she began studying in 6th grade), her math is far more advanced than the curriculum, at least by one grade level. In Vietnam, she is in a class of 54. Here, her class has 22 students. There are aspects of her education here that she really values, in particular, class discussions and the willingness of her teacher and fellow students to entertain different points of view. Of course, class discussions would not be possible in a class of 54 (or 80). She also says that students here do far far less homework than in Vietnam. Chinese students also do a lot more homework. I imagine that all this homework gets corrected!</p>

<p>I think the big advantage of the AP tests over the SAT IIs is that the SAT IIs are too short and are all multiple choice. The AP tests require free response sections and are longer tests.</p>

<p>I think one of the main reasons that there’s really only one AP testing period (yes, I know about the makeup period) is that they get all the readers together from across the country and score the free response sections together.</p>

<p>They essentially only come up with 3 versions of each AP exam each year (US during normal testing period, International during testing period, and makeup period). To do the testing on Saturdays and give the students an option each time on what test to take would require writing far more questions, which would complicate the grading somewhat. </p>

<p>My daughter’s high school doesn’t come to a standstill during the AP testing period. The tests are held off campus so that they have space that is not disrupted by bells, announcements, and passing periods. Students are only excused for the part of the day when they have a test.</p>