For years I have been reading on CC about how hard it is to take so many AP classes and how stressed out the kids are who try, but it really must depend on the school and teacher (and whether the kids are shooting for all 5s or if they just want the score they need for the credit, which in some cases may be a 3 or 4). My kids have all taken a healthy dose of AP classes, but not once have they had a busy-work project, a worthless group project, anything involving coloring, costumes, or much of anything I would consider a waste of time. The classes move at a quick pace to be sure. But anyone at our HS can take an AP class as long as the student had a B in the subject the prior semester or at least a C in that subject the prior semester if it was an Honors, GT or AP class. Once the busy work is taken out of the course, the kids can accomplish a lot and learn a lot, and our AP test passing rate is excellent. Kids (mine included) even take AP tests after taking only the Honors version of a class (not the AP course), and pass the AP test. I guess I need to write a few more thank you letters to teachers at our school!
At our high school, the AP classes are filled with mostly Asian kids. Often my children have been the only non-Asian, or one of only 2 non-Asians in their honors and AP classes. Is this due to the fact that Asians are smarter than other ethnic groups? No, but they are better-prepared to be tracked back in middle school and then ultimately selected for the upper level classes due to years of summer classes and tutoring. Hence they earn the majority of the spots.
By the time my third child came around, I had had enough. D not only did not do well enough on that math predictive test to place in algebra in 7th grade, she did not even do well enough to be in the next level below that! But I boldly decided to speak with the supervisor and called it as I saw it. I said their system gave unfair advantage to the ethnic groups from cram school cultures and that if my child were taught the material, she could learn it just as well as anyone else. But to have the system set up such that she must already be able to do algebra to be allowed to take the algebra class is unfair. The result? After much worried hand-wringing by the school, my kid was allowed in the algebra track and, miraculously, got an A. Interestingly, she had no need for outside tutoring, despite the fact she is NOT a strong math kid. Why? Because now when it comes to placement, our school system is not truly selecting for aptitude, nor for determination and a desire to learn, rather they are selecting for the lowest-risk students who are most likely to succeed with the least teaching, because they already know a lot of the material coming in. Lucky for D, her algebra teacher believed in teaching, and D learned just fine despite not being a math genius. I regret that there were many, many kids a lot smarter than she is, and certainly naturally a whole lot better in math, who did not have the opportunity they deserved to take algebra along with her. Regrettably many teachers no longer work all that hard to teach, since they know the kids are getting tutoring anyway. That is why it is hard to succeed in those classes without tutoring–not that kids who don’t have the aptitude are taking the classes, but that the classes presume prior knowledge and outside teaching.
In sum, I am skeptical when schools set up restrictions for who can and cannot take certain classes because I am not convinced that their selection methods are accurate and fair. Of course I understand the need to meet prerequisites, but I do not trust teachers to choose who gets in, especially now that their salaries are tied to student performance. Also, the very fact that you must apply in order to accepted into the higher classes creates the winner/loser dynamic epiphany is lamenting.
Nope, doesn’t seem fair, @TheGFG. At least at our school where there are grade requirements for taking AP classes, kids can apply for a waiver, and everyone who applies gets it. I think the waiver process is there just so the counselor can talk face to face with the student and stress that the class will be challenging. Kids can always start in AP and drop to Honors or on-level at any time. Seems like a better system.
Individual situations and schools need to be looked at differently. I will just say that if the teachers are SO incompetent to judge whether a student is capable of the next level (AP) from an Honors course, why would any parent enroll a child there? (A child capable and desirous of such higher level work)
At the private my D’s attended, the standard was: Did the student earn at least a strong B+ in the class? If not, the student was not promoted to the next level. A parent could certainly question (and sometimes did), but if the teacher could corroborate with evidence, the teacher’s word held.
I know some of you are thinking, "can’t afford private.’ I’ll just say that I’ve had a number of parents approach me recently for guidance in switching their students out of one of these irresponsible schools I’ve referred to, and these parents are hardly swimming in money.
I would just never keep my student for long in a school that keeps incompetent or underprepared teachers who would not be able to determine promotability of a student to a higher level. I admit that a few times we’ve had to weather a couple of less competent teachers in a different private school (waiting out the storm for a better teacher next year), but it certainly wasn’t a prolonged or overall situation.
The teachers have a conflict of interest more than a problem of competence. It is in their best interest to recommend Asian kids over non-Asians, all other things being equal because Asian parents have a lower tolerance for B’s and C’s and will pay for tutoring to ensure better performance. That gives the teachers an better chance at good student results and higher pay
never mind
epiphany - our public school has similar criteria for entrance into AP/honors. Sometimes a student could get a waiver with a lower grade but very strong standardized test scores.
Also unlike TheGFG’s district, ours allows for twice exceptional students to take honors/AP classes in areas of academic strength. PA does allow for gifted iep’s, and parents whose children have been in this position have been very vocal over years in insisting that a disability iep not prevent a student from enrolling in these classes if they are otherwise qualified with accommodations as necessary. Some of these students would never stand a chance of admission to any of the area private schools with this level of academics, btw, if the disability is an ASD or AD(H)D.
It seems to be the private schools that limit entrance into AP classes, but the next track down (college prep) in private schools is better regarded by many parents than the similar track in the public school. Frazzled kids admitted that at least part of their motivation for taking honors/AP classes was the desire to be among more studious and respectful peers.
Also, some parents are concerned when their children are cut for limited spaces in public school EC’s. It is not just about college admissions; some parents want their children to learn recreational skills among peers as part of their educational experience.
Gee, GFG, let me think for a minute. Asia contains 60% of the world’s population. So when one starts wailing about Asian Americans, it doesn’t mean much: Indian, Chinese, Indonesian, Turkish? Here’s an interesting table and pages of a book to help you think about what part of Asia you’re stereotyping.
When Asian Americans do better than whites, it’s because they’re forced to learn by cruel parents. When African Americans do less well, it’s because they’re poor, badly raised, or . . . ?
I don’t know that I buy into that slogan. We wanted our kids to be the best that they could be, but also encouraged their eccentricities and pursuit of special talents as they tried out all kinds of activities and found some that they were especially attracted to.
We lived in Palo Alto (P.A.) for a year when the kids were in 7th and 4th grades. I recall the day we showed up to register the older one at JLS middle school, going to the registrar’s office the day after a long multiday drive-tour from the midwest. We’d looked at the program and I told the registrar that we thought our son should be in the “high 8th grade” math class (don’t recall the terminology, but he was talented in math, having placed very high (2ns) in state competitions the previous year). She was skeptical, but said, “Here kid, take this test and bring it back when you’re finished.” About 15 minutes later, he brought it back, and she said to us “You were right.” The story here isn’t so much that he was advanced in math but that the presumption was that only a kid from here (P.A.) could be qualified. By the end of the year, he was competing in and placing very high the math regional math competitions in the South Bay. They were surprised when he left to return to the midwest (I had been in a sabbatical and needed to return to my regular posting), as if he was in academic nirvana in the South Bay and would return to the mediocrity from which he had emerged during this year!
There was a kind of regional “conceit” that couldn’t quite accept that there were smart kids and good schools elsewhere in the country. Our son didn’t make any lifelong friends during his time there, but it was a very good experience for him, and he’s done pretty well in life and career growing up in and attending college in the midwest.
Here’s another example of what I think reflects a cultural peculiarity or difference. At one point during the year the kids were given a note from the school to take home to their parents. It was about tutoring. It went something like this. “We encourage parents who want to hire tutors to help their kids. But good tutors are hard to find. If you do locate a good tutor, we encourage you to share this information with the school so that other parents might employ them, too.” Now I never saw such a note from our school district in the midwest. But i would wager that if there had been one it would have read something like this. “We encourage parents who want to find tutors for their children. But good tutors are hard to find, and they can be expensive. If you find a good tutor, we encourage you to share this information with the school. If you can’t afford a tutor, we have a special program to help to pay the costs of tutoring, based on need.”
The combination of money and a certain regional conceit combined to make P.A. special.
Thread is off track. The point wasn’t your school, your complaints, your awful teachers, etc. And now, ‘those pesky Asians??’
…and away we go
Seems to me that if life in New Canaan or Greenwich is too much of a pressure cooker a sensible parent would move to Norwalk (a ten minute drive from New Canaan for those of you outside the NY metro area). Trust me- no kid is staying up until midnight trying to balance 5 AP’s at Norwalk HS.
I don’t buy the argument that the pressure is so intense and systemic and pervasive and everywhere. Even in the most gilded communities, you are not more than 15 minutes away from a less affluent and less competitive neighborhood. So move there.
The kids in Scarsdale and Chappaqua may indeed be overloaded with tutors and cramming and EC’s. But Mt Vernon is ten minutes away. Portchester is 15 minutes away. Yonkers anyone? Don’t subject your kid to the hyper competitive climate if you object to it. Within a reasonable commute of where you live there are communities where the parents don’t show up for college night ('cause the kid is going to State U) and nobody is vying to get on the debating team- any kid who wanders over after school gets a spot.
I sense that we all want our cake and to eat it too- and to have someone else clean up afterwards. But part of being a grown up is making choices for your kids (and then sitting back and letting them take over). I sense that the irritation I’m reading is that someone has stretched to pay to move to Winnetka or Highland Park (just to take the Northeast out of the equation) and now their kid hasn’t made the HS orchestra because there are so many fabulous musicians who live in Winnetka and Highland Park who are going to get in Stanford over your kid.
There are plenty of HS’s in the Chicago metro region.
GFG complained that she couldn’t trust the teachers to make an accurate assessment. I call that a question of competence, not conflict of interest necessarily. Assessment (both formal and informal) is a primary needed qualification of any teacher for credentialing; if the teachers cannot assess (or will not) accurately, they should be fired, union or no. And assessment, along with more comprehensive evaluation of a student, is what one looks for to provide a well-reasoned, credible recommendation for college. Again, why would any parent TOLERATE a school where the competent teachers were so few, given that so much (for private colleges) rests with penetrating teacher recs?
I am well aware of ethnographic facts, but in our district the Indians, Chinese and Korean students generally share the same ethos about education. Don’t put words in my mouth, mamalion, I never said “cruel.” That was your word, and yours alone. If you think that word is accurate to describe them, then I am “cruel” too because my kids have done very well and my ethos is similar. The difference is that I was not raised with the idea that a child’s education needed to be supplemented outside school other than by reading or going to museums, and neither were most Americans of my generation who were not immigrants or children of immigrants. You went to school, you came home, you did your homework and studied for tests, and that was good enough to get into a good college and get a job. You didn’t go to tutors, or to Saturday classes, or to advancement classes all summer. You read, you played, you went to the beach, or you worked a menial job in the summer.
Fast forward to today where I live, a large percentage of my child’s public school peers are being raised by parents for whom the norm does entail a lot of formal education outside the walls of the public school. Obviously, this confers on them a competitive advantage over kids raised by parents who grew up like I did. For the most part, people like me have been slow to respond to the change, or perhaps unwilling to respond. As a result, their kids are being left behind academically. Is that fair? To an extent it is. We believe in hard work in this country, and they are being outworked. On the other hand, I think many parents don’t really understand what’s happening. They just assume their child is not smart enough, or too lazy to be in the top classes, or else feel that what the Indians, Chinese and Koreans do academically deprives their kids of the relaxed childhood they themselves enjoyed and want for their offspring. It’s not part of our culture yet, but that will have to change, apparently.
“what the Chinese and Koreans do academically >deprives< their kids . . .” Really!!!
It’s much easier to judge aptitude if the students come in with the same knowledge base. Then you can watch who grasps the material quickly and can manipulate and extend concepts well as they think in front of you. But what if the student has been both taught and tutored in the subject you’re teaching before he enters your class. What you think is sharpness and aptitude may not be at all.
2/3 of the students in my older D’s chem class had taken the same class over the summer before school began. What are the chances that the kids getting recommended for AP Chem the following year fall in the 2/3 group? Pretty high. Teachers think they’re comparing apples to apples, but they’re not, or else know they’re not but test scores are test scores. Do you really think they’re going to say, “Hmm, that student may have earned a GPA that’s 2 points higher because he already took the class before so it was much easier for him, so maybe I’ll recommend the other student with a lower GPA instead.”
So to get back on topic: I think there are problems with wanting the best for one’s child and not wanting one’s child to be the best. That is, the title of this thread is too much like a Hallmark card. It is a quote from the article, but . . .
What is the wanted best? Clearly it isn’t a North Face jacket or a tennis pro. The middle class is struggling to hang on to their life style, according to the article, and to bequeath it to their children, but the economic changes are making it difficult for (upper) middle class parents to ensure the culture and values with which they were raised. At a fairly clear level, tiger parents want the best cultural values and life style, as they perceive them, and they trying to secure them for their children.
Why wouldn’t one want her child to be the best? Of course it would be overbearing to force a child to play piano, but if the kid likes music, what is wrong with committing to helping the child be the best pianist that she can be? It is important for children to learn to work and develop skills as best they are able.
I don’t live in P.A. Perhaps if I did, I would see the quote as a more valid admonition, but from where I sit, I see it as too simplistic.
Mamalion, you know very well that a good portion of parents think what I stated, as could be seen from the uproar over the Tiger Mom. That is not what I think, because as I have said, I more closely resemble the Tiger Mom than her detractors.
I did not mean to derail the thread, but felt it was too simplistic to put all the blame on parents’ misplaced priorities.
Well, in my book, it’s certainly crappy role-modeling if, in the course of wanting your child to be the best she can be, you resort to trying to make sure your child is always #1, because that effort will likely result in you and your child having to destroy the competition as much as possible. (And that describes accurately the dynamics of some of these hyper-competitive environments.)
What a world.
(Addressed to everyone, not one particular person.)
We encourage hard work and excellence. If that leads to being 'the best" at a particular endeavor, then so be it. If it does not, there is much to be gained from an inferior position as well. I think that one can help kids strive to be the best without any animus toward the competition, and without assuming they are the best at everything else too. For example, today I suggested my daughter pass along a piece of helpful information to a teammate, even though she is a competitor for the same slots as my D. I am not saying that it was so noble, but I do know there are those who would never do that.
What’s apparently happened is that the larger world is noting some kids ARE under killer pressure.
What do you do when a B or a perceived drop in rigor can affect chances at that limited pool of singe digit colleges?
Some adjust their goals. Some do have more energy to pull out. But some are shredded by it all. Not all high schools, but that wasn’t the point. The point was the kids who ARE shredding.