<p>Today's Washington Post had an interesting article describing the current review of AP classes. Jay Matthews is the writer who does the "Challenge Index" Newsweek uses to rate high schools.</p>
<p>There can be a big difference between what is written on paper and what is actually required of paper. Is anyone surprised that the track record of teachers isn't taken into account?</p>
<p>The hard part about teacher track record is that you have to have significantly more data than the AP can generate.</p>
<p>For instance, if I have the top 1% of the students at my school taking the class, and the top half of the class taking the exam, I would expect signficantly better results than I would if a comparable school allowed the top 30% of the students to take the class and required all of the students to take the exam.</p>
<p>That being said, the College Board does have access to certain information (school size, for instance), and could probably devise a way to do so. I think the problem is that somebody would complain that they just missed the criteria and were just as rigorous (if not more so). So they make everybody do it.</p>
<p>That being said, the process was absolutely ridiculous. My personal favorite example was the case of the teacher whose syllabus was posted on the AP Audit website as an example of what to do submitted that syllabus for the audit and was rejected. :)</p>
<p>I am not, primarily for the same reasons as TheMathProf said. Some schools, like Millburn (NJ) and Mamaroneck (NY) practice gatekeeping, where those who take APs must have teacher recommendations and take qualification test(s). Thus many of their students would get scores of 5, and it would appear to be a quality program, even if it was not, because the students enrolled in these courses are already exceptional.</p>