<p>an interesting article from the NYT
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/education/edlife/09ap-t.html?_r=1&ref=edlife%5B/url%5D">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/education/edlife/09ap-t.html?_r=1&ref=edlife</a></p>
<p>The emphasis on greater depth, with less breadth and less memorization, sounds a lot like IB to me.</p>
<p>A good move!</p>
<p>It sounds like a good idea to me. I watched D take AP Euro last year, and I could see where the sheer volume of material and amount of minutiae that needed to be memorized could suck the joy out of the class for anyone. Fortunately her teacher did more than just have them memorize and regurgitate material - they read outside books and had regular discussion sessions - but in order to have the time to do that, there were huge summer reading assignments, massive amounts of reading and homework throughout the year, and twice a week outside of school hours review sessions for the last month before the test. D was a sophomore and only taking one AP course; I don’t know how the CC kids who routinely take 5 AP courses at a time could have done it. On the good news front, no one in the class got less than a 4 on the test. Even though I think the AP change will be good, I would imagine there will be a lot of transition pain in many schools.</p>
<p>Great thoughts from a science teacher here: [How</a> to get rid of AP (part 2): why AP is bad Quantum Progress](<a href=“http://quantumprogress.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2010/12/21/how-to-get-rid-of-ap-part-2-why-ap-is-bad/]How”>How to get rid of AP (part 2): why AP is bad | Quantum Progress)</p>
<p>Thanks for posting. Interesting stuff. I’m wondering how long it will take to actually make a difference nationally? The tests will change…the teaching material will change…but how quickly will teachers be able to adapt? Certainly there will be districts where this will happen more quickly. I guess there are districts where AP’s are just plain done better as it is so perhaps it’s a moot point. A better direction to be sure.</p>
<p>NOTE: I crossed posts with beth’s mom. Many students at our school avoid APUSH and APEURO if they are going the AP math and science track. The combination will simply kill you. A few are cut out for it, but very few. Add a sport or an EC and your are really risking your GPA. Across the county, kids can do both but don’t fare well on the exam as the material just isn’t covered. They also don’t do as well on the corresponding SAT Subject tests.</p>
<p>I am not a big fan of the current AP exams, but I don’t know if I like all those sample questions they are giving in the article, at least for the US History test. Are those from the new style test? </p>
<p>I think the sample essay questions are okay, and I actually think the sample MC#1 is a very good question, because you actually have to have some idea of what was happening between 1800 and 1860 to answer it.</p>
<p>But the reading passage questions seem more like SAT critical reading questions than history questions. Maybe a little more difficult reading comprehension questions, but I don’t think you really need any knowledge of history to answer them.</p>
<p>I think I’ll take a look at the sample Bio questions.</p>
<p>This is why Scarsdale school district no longer offers AP classes. They’ve found by offering “accelerated” classes (I forget what they call them) instead the kids can delve more deeply into topics of interest.</p>
<p>My daughter complains about this all the time in her AP English class. It takes a really good and experienced AP teacher to be able to encompass both details for the test and interesting discussion for the class. Our former AP English teacher was great at that, she even put together a parent/child reading group for some of the required reading. She retired and this is only the second year for this teacher so she’s not quite as versatile yet. </p>
<p>BTW, the whole NY Times Education section is worth reading if you can get your hands on it.</p>
<p>I haven’t read the Education section yet, but I think there’s a place for both survey and more in depth courses in a college curriculum, so it never bothered me that much that many AP courses were more like survey courses. The survey courses I took in college covered larges swathes of history and you were expected to be able to do short IDs (no multiple choice) in great detail. </p>
<p>Both my sons had AP History teachers that managed to both cover enough material for learning the basics, plus delving into detail in the areas that interested them. The AP Euro teacher, in particular is notorious for not preparing kids for the test, but is nevertheless considered the best teacher in the school. He makes a great effort to teach them to write college level essays. Most of the kids get 4s and 5s despite his approach.</p>
<p>The AP Bio teacher complained the most about the AP feeling that they were forced to cover more material than a typical college Biology class. I don’t think AP Euro and APUSH are out of line at all.</p>
<p>My son in the class of 09 took 11 APs. My '11 D will have 9. D who is a freshman will have more like 4-5. Can you tell I’m getting disenchanted?</p>
<p>Let’s take AP Bio. No dissections in class because “there are no dissections on the AP exam.” Son only got a 2, so he had to take bio in college last semester…of course, in “real” college bio, there is a lab with dissections.</p>
<p>APUSH. The teacher looks at what percentage of the exam is for each historcal era, and she spends exactly that amount of class time on that era…e.g. if the test is 11% pre-Columbian, she spends exactly 11% of her instructional time on that period. Insane.</p>
<p>Next: lots of colleges have many sections of the freshman (101) classes open for students at registration. But if they need to take the next class due to AP credits, there are often no spaces left in the sophomore level class.</p>
<p>My H teaches AP Bio and he is overjoyed about these changes. He wants to teach critical thinking and depth, but is perpetually challenged by the breadth of material that could be on the test. Someone asked if teachers would/could make the change that quickly. The new test doesn’t start till 2012; H would switch to teaching that curriculum tomorrow if he could, and certainly would applaud the changes to be moved up to next fall, if it were possible. </p>
<p>Interestingly, even though his students didn’t mostly get 5s, several who moaned and groaned through the course as seniors (when our students take it) came back and said they felt more prepared thinking-wise than many of their fellow students in their college courses.</p>
<p>FWIW I have my doubts about APs being anything more than accelerated and not really college level when many colleges do not accept the succesful tests (even 5s) for credit. While our student will have taken 10 APs (the rest honors) during hs…it was to show “rigor”.
Expensive - sure. Yet required if your student wants to show they took advantage of the offerings at their hs (when compared to the hs profile during admissions)
The question remains–Is AP really college level?
We value critical thinking skills, the ability to apply principles etc…and forget that the european system (IB) does teach to the test. They know what the kids need to know–and make sure they get that preparation. There are some things that need to be memorized and facts the studnets need to know cold. Both memorzed facts, and the ability to apply principles are needed.
IF AP really was college level–then why do we call it hs? Isn’t hs a time for them to develop these skills. Perhaps whats needed beyond revamping the tests -is the fact our educational system in the US and the avg hs is woefully inadequate for what these students need.</p>
<p>Our large urban + suburban public school district has emphasized APs for many years and has always had a large number of high schools that show up in Newsweek’s rankings that are based upon the average number of AP/IB exams taken. Fortunately for my family, until the recent budget crisis the school district paid for the exams. </p>
<p>I think the question of whether the AP courses are truly college level depends upon the teachers, the motivation of the students, and also the expectations of the college. My kids were fortunate to attend one of the best high schools in the district where the AP teachers were mostly very good. </p>
<p>My son graduated from HS with 11 AP exams (one 4 and the rest 5s) and went on to a top 100 private college that gave credit for most of his APs. He had a very successful college career and commented that some of his APs were more rigorous than the lower level college classes he took. He felt that his AP experience left him better prepared for college than the majority of his classmates who did not take as many APs. It also made it very easy for him to add a couple of minors, do a semester abroad and do internships.</p>
<p>My daughter is currently a sophomore at a top 10 college. She finished HS with 13 APs (fives on all exams) and this only exempted her from the foreign language requirement at her college. She also feels that her HS prepared her well for where she is. But, by and large her classmates came in with a similar level of AP/IB exams so the expectations at her school are naturally higher than for her brother’s college. She is in a STEM major and was not exempt from any freshman level math or science due to AP. However, her school has multiple levels of freshman level math and science classes and her AP performance qualified her to enroll in the higher level freshman classes. And while her school does not award credit for APs as offsets to specific college classes, they do recognize their value by allowing students with a sufficient AP/IB record to graduate after three years or to get their bachelors and a masters in four years. I understand that the vast majority who qualify for this choose not to because they don’t want to shorten their college experience.</p>
<p>So, from my kids’ experience I would say that AP is really college level.</p>
<p>This will cause my sophomore D more thought in her scheduling. At our HS, currently it is recommended that AP Bio and Anatomy be taken at the same time, because the AP Bio class doesn’t cover all the material. They do perform dissections in anatomy, which was a favorite part for my older D.</p>
<p>I’m still hoping for a revamp of AP French! I was told they made Spanish easier a few years ago.</p>
<p>I think APs are college level for the average college in the US. You know the ones where kids with average SAT scores go. Not the CC average college. ;)</p>
<p>So far my kids have found that the AP curriculum prepared them well for the next level up in college.</p>
<p>I’m going to copy over part of my post on this topic on HSL:</p>
<p>The AP Bio curriculum is excessive, no doubt about it. However, my class did not cover all of Campbell - we left at least 25 chapters unopened - and still did very well on the AP exam. My conclusion is that even in the status quo it is possible to do well by focusing on certain conceptual areas rather than memorizing the whole book.</p>
<p>IMO, a bigger overhaul needs to occur in the labs. The current 12 labs are just awful.</p>
<p>To be clear: I don’t have any problem with revising the AP Bio course. But I don’t necessarily buy the idea that the current test mandates excessive memorization. That simply was not my experience, and I think that students who feel forced to memorize all of Campbell either have lazy or incompetent teachers or are simply not capable of handling the course material.</p>
<p>EDIT - @mamabear: I believe phase one of the AP French revision goes into effect next year. Too late for me, unfortunately :(</p>
<p>My S enjoyed the many AP courses he took. His school uniformly does extremely well on the current AP exams. He did feel that some of the AP exams were “jokes,” which he took w/o having taking the courses (just studied the review guides for several hours at the library & at the bookstore. The maximum # of credits you can bring in from AP & college coursework as a freshman at the school he entered was 60; he would have far exceeded that but entered with 60. The credits didn’t really do much other than give him priority for registration.</p>
<p>His U encouraged all freshmen to RETAKE all their courses–calculus, CS, and physics, even tho most (including S) had gotten 5s on their AP exams in the subject. He found it helpful as a review–for 3 semesters! A friend’s S was able to get the same U to let him be placed directly in higher level classes as a freshman where he struggled a bit (was also auditting higher level finance courses). Other kids we know also got placed into higher level courses elsewhere, so they were able to get their BS in engineering & MS in engineering in the 4 years it would normally have taken to get the BS.</p>
<p>Glad that this issue is being reviewed so that hopefully meaningful changes can be made which will make the courses more valuable to the students.</p>
<p>D did well enough on her AP exams to get an entire semester of credit at her school. Because registration is done by # of credit hours, she has always been able to register ahead of most of her friends and get the classes she wanted. So it was a win/win for us.</p>
<p>She took 6 AP classes, which was a lot for her HS. The average is 3. So, just curious how did some of your kids with 11 or 13 AP’s? What all did they take? Our HS does not let freshman take any and sophs are only able to take 1. Do your schools require that they take the exam? Ours does.</p>
<p>Some full-year classes correspond to multiple exams. So, by taking 1 AP in 10th, 4 APs in 11th, and 5 APs in 12th one could easily reach 12+ exams.</p>
<p>My S took all APs & marching band as a senior, a few as a junior & one as a sophomore. He also took exams w/o taking the course because he found the material interesting and easy to study for (environmental studies & government or something). AP English prepared students for 2 exams (Lit & Comp). He also got college credit for taking a college course over the summer. All told, I think he ended up taking 14 AP exams–I believe he got 2 4s and all the rest were 5s. Since most of the other engineers also had tons of AP credit, they all registered “early,” so there wasn’t all that much of an advantage in engineering but a slight edge in other courses he wanted to take. He did end up with the time slots he most wanted & that made him VERY happy. :)</p>