<p>I’m skeptical about the need for proliferation of AP classes. I agree with most of what’s covered, but want to add that another impetus is the “most rigorous curriculum” box that guidance counselors have to check off for elite schools. Students feel pressure to take more and more APs to ensure that the GC checks off that box. </p>
<p>Another issue is that as more and more kids take more and more APs, it becomes norm for students to take APs in everything. A kid who isn’t great at math is put under considerable stress to take calculus, because if they don’t, that box isn’t checked. Back when I went to high school, you took APs in the classes you were good at, not in everything. At my daughter’s high school, the AP math teacher made it crystal clear that she was teaching AP calculus assuming that everyone of her students was going to major in engineering, physics or computer science. She advised my humanities kid to not take her class. </p>
<p>My public high school in the 1970s had very few APs but many honors classes. These were true honors classes. My European history class in 10th grade was probably the hardest class I ever took, and it was not AP. Schools where it’s either AP or easy are lazy and unimaginative.</p>