Scarsdale schools' plan to drop AP courses sparks backlash

<p>Actually Scarsdale seniors are on "Senior Options" from May 1 - June 18 or so. Students have HS teacher mentors and they develop an internship experience with outside mentors. They then work, full time, for the 4-5 week period and return to the HS the week before graduation to do presentations for the faculty, their peers and their parents. They interview for and create the internships, keep journals, check in weekly with their HS mentors and learn a little about what its like to "work in the real world". Kids work in bakeries, hospitals, art galleries, offices and just about wherever they have the initiaive to go seek employment. It keeps them more engaged and productive during that time period when "senior slump" prevails. Eliminating APs will also allow those students who choose not to take the tests to create potentially more meaningful senior options experiences since they will not have to be taking tests for the first 2 weeks of May.</p>

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<li>Hadn't heard about that internship thing ; sounds like a really good idea, based on what we're experiencing over here.</li>
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<p>Better to be doing something useful , of whatever nature, than, effectively, nothing.</p>

<p>My major complaint about the APs is the cost. Between my two kids we paid for 15 AP exams at, I believe, $82 a pop. One kid's school did not accept even one of the nine, despite top scores. The other school took a maximum of four, which I actually felt was reasonable. </p>

<p>My second complaint is that depending on what state you live in, the kids have varying amounts of academic year time to complete an AP curriculum. Many east coast schools start after Labor Day which gives kids as much as one month less time than kids who live in southern states who are back to school in August.</p>

<p>On another note, I have no problem with the kids watching movies or having some fun in class after the AP exams are over. They put in their fair share of time to prepare for them and do the work that the courses demand all year long .. . and of course the juniors have to sandwich in the SATs and SAT IIs inbetween the exams ... as the College Board continues to profit.</p>

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Many east coast schools start after Labor Day which gives kids as much as one month less time than kids who live in southern states who are back to school in August.

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Just wanted to make a quick comment about this -- Our school district in NC does go back in August, but we have 4/4 block scheduling. That means that AP Euro, AP Stats and many other year-long AP courses are taught during one semester. Before our state legislature bowed to the wishes of the tourism industry (don't get me started), the second semester started at the beginning of January, so the entire AP course was taught from January 1st until the date of the exam. Now the second semester doesn't start until late January, so the AP courses are mostly taught FIRST semester to allow sufficient time to cover the material during the semester. The students then have a different full schedule second semester on top of which they have to study the material they were taught first semester for the AP exam. So, yes, the southern school schedule might appear to give some advantage by having the students back in school in August, but I think the semester block schedule our district uses takes away that advantage. (yes, I realize that not all southern schools use this type of block scheduling)</p>

<p>From what D1 told me I wouldn't be worrying much about AP stats. Her take was that it was about a month's worth of material spread out to occupy an entire year. No course bored her more.</p>

<p>AP Euro is a different story though.</p>

<p>I found that Matthew article (post #37) a bit odd.</p>

<p>He contends that grade grubbing will increase if APs are eliminated because AP exam grades are only 1-5, whereas "regular" grades have greater distinctions: e.g, + and - .</p>

<p>In the schools my kids have attended the grades in AP classes had nothing to do with the scores on the actual AP exam. In the case of seniors taking AP exams the colleges won't even see these scores before making their decisions.
IF there was going to be grade grubbing in classes this would be taking place in our schools, to exactly the same extent, whether they were designated AP or not.</p>

<p>He also implies that the private schools that have dropped AP are not the types that send lots of kids to HYP. I don't know who the other schools are, but I know Fieldston, where this whole thing started, does send more than its share to top schools.</p>

<p>I agree. BU Academy sends quite a few students to HYP, as does Scarsdale.
In fact, some students take AP classes mostly for grade grubbing purposes, because grades in these classes are weighted. The same students do not take AP exams, which is why the CB is concerned about quality and validation of the courses that are labelled AP.</p>

<p>The private schools here that send the most kids to HYPS never adopted AP in the first place. Some kids take the tests, but the schools pretty resolutely refuse to teach to the tests or to brand their courses. However, the "good" public schools, urban and suburban, that also send kids to HYPS, are AP/IB crazy.</p>

<p>As for grade-grubbing, monydad is right: AP tests have nothing to do with grades, grades have everything to do with class rank and GPA, colleges care about class rank and GPA, ambitious kids think colleges care even more than they do, ambitious kids grub grades (sometimes even when they don't mean to). My son tried to stay out of that trap, and mostly succeeded, but sometimes not.</p>

<p>Ooops, I have to take it back. A quick check shows that many of the schools I was thinking about do offer at least some "AP" courses -- mainly in math, physics, chemistry, French and Spanish, but some a pretty full range, and only a couple of schools turn their backs on it entirely. AP English seems especially unpopular (perhaps because the good colleges don't care about it at all).</p>

<p>And for informational purposes...Scarsdale does not weight grades, and students who took AP courses previously were required to sign a contract agreeing to sit for the test. Originally the purpose of requiring the test was to avoid the seniors blowing it off after college decisions came out. And of course, if you're going to have to take the test, you might as well study and do the best you can...so the thought was if the test was required the kids would stay engaged til the end. NOT, especially as kids realized that the colleges they were committing to would not grant credit, or even placement (in many cases) based on AP scores. </p>

<p>And to agree with a previous poster, in a family with 3 kids we have paid a minor fortune for AP exams over the years. I'd rather not support the College Board any more than I have to.</p>

<p>Way back when we took the English AP at my private school, but the English course wasn't geared towards it. (I did a semester of Jacobean drama and a semester of Epic Poetry.) </p>

<p>My kid was on the fence about taking AP English and in the end a scheduling conflict kept him out to his relief. He's taken other APs not because he has a burning interest in the subject, but because they were courses that would be populated by other serious students and bright kids like himself. Some courses like US History he had to take in some version anyway. Others like Economics he knew nothing about ahead of time, but likes it pretty well.</p>