This was our experience with the AP teachers in my D’s private school. Except for the year my D took AP chem with a new teacher because the old one had a health crisis and unexpectedly left. The kids ended up teaching her the material. Frustrating year for D but from the parent perspective, it was a good life lesson in finding external sources to still do well in the class. She ended up getting tutoring from the older brother of a friend who was studying chemical engineering, using Kahn Academy, and working in study groups. They all got As in the class and 2s/3s on the AP test so it was a fail on the school’s part. The school moved to more of the DE model the following year and now I’m wondering if that didn’t have something to do with the decision!
It’s popular here, as a way to save on college cost. The kids are not gunning for top schools. AP is barely a thing and it is all online. DD’19 took 1 AP and that was enough to get her a 4.013 and be valedictorian (but got a 3 on test so didn’t get college credit). DE classes, except for College Algebra which is in person with a HS teacher, are also all online and free. DD’19 came into college with 22 credits and I think 19 counted for gen eds at her regional public. So that saved her one semester+ of tuition, and she took 15 credits over summers and graduated a year early.
I think that it is very common in our area, as 3 of her close friends at her college also graduated with her a year early.
So it worked out great for us. DD’17 didn’t take as many but both girls also really appreciated being able to take their only college math requirement while still at home where I could serve as their tutor.
That’s awful. I’m sorry that happened.
I wonder why the teacher didn’t just use the resources that the students used to make her own curriculum? That’s what I did when the school didn’t provide me with enough teaching resources. The first year I taught AP, I had plenty of resources and funding, so that wasn’t a problem. In that way, I was fortunate.
I do think this move has to do with keeping costs down (including on hiring) while keeping rigor up.
Yes, but shouldn’t all high school teachers have similar qualifications, so that any of them is capable of teaching an AP-level course if necessary (instead of there being only one teacher in the school who can teach an AP-level course in the subject area)?
In theory, if the new teacher had a BA/BS in chemistry, the new teacher should have been able to teach AP chemistry.
I can only speak for my experiences in Texas, but in our DFW area, if you know you’re planning on staying in state and going to a public university, dual credit in high school is the way to go. Between dual credit and AP, my son entered Texas Tech with 24 credit hours and pretty much all his Gen Ed classes done. Dual Credit in our district are taught either on campus or at that nearby community college (depending on the class). We are already on a 4x4 accelerated block schedule so only 4 classes a semester, so our kids already have a pseudo college experience in high school. His transition to college was seamless. As a Finance major, he was able to go directly into lower level core classes his Freshman year. He is on track to finish his bachelors in 3 years and a graduate a year early. It saved us a ton of money.
Our school district also weights Dual Credit classes the same as AP, so for the all important Texas Top 10% rule for auto admits, dual credit classes make the most sense. My son also has texting anxiety, so not having to deal with end of the year AP tests was plus. He opted to do Dual credit for all his core classes 11th & 12th grade (english, us history, gov’t, econ) and then had AP classes for world human geo, world history, environmental science that all got accepted for additional elective credits at Texas Tech.
Another reason AP classes are not offered is the lack of students meeting the prerequisites. Our school doesn’t have AP statistics this year because of this. The handful of students who wanted to take it were very upset.
In our public district, DE courses are heavily promoted to all students. Many of my students don’t have parents capable of helping them mapping out their high school plan leading to college. Many of the counselors are kind and caring people but not very knowledgeable regarding colleges and college application process. Quite some students were advised to take DE courses believing all colleges would recognize the credits, which is not true.
When the top students (from our school) apply to college, they don’t have many AP credits because the school doesn’t offer many because few students meet the prerequisite; on the other hand they have many DE credits but only the partnering colleges (community colleges and state universities) accept them. These kids have a big disadvantage when they apply to the most selective schools and more likely than not are rejected. I strongly believe they will thrive in state universities and accomplish much great in college and beyond; however, I can’t stop feeling they’re disserved.
Given the low acceptance rates at highly selective colleges, it might be for the best if many students pursue just DE credit which transfers to their state university option.
Our local public high school really struggles to teach AP classes well (and maybe also regular classes), even though they offer a decent number of them. My info from other parents and celebratory notices by the school indicates that very few kids from our high school earn 5s on the tests, even though most kids get As. 
My sons (who are homeschooled) take their AP tests with our local high school and every time they say the other kids complain after the test that they have not covered a significant amount of the material that was on the test.
The LPS also highly encourages juniors and seniors to do dual enrollment classes. My observation is that the kids who are more academically focused and shooting for a traditional college experience tend to take AP classes, and the students who come from lower SES backgrounds or might have been marginal for going to college are more likely to do the DE classes.
I have noticed that the community colleges in our area really market and push dual enrollment. I am not entirely sure if it is for revenue reasons, or because they feel like it helps achieve their mission of making sure everyone has access to higher education, or what. My kids have taken dual enrollment classes at a couple of community colleges and our experience has been that, unfortunately, the quality of teaching and the academic expectations are significantly below the online (high school) classes they have had the opportunity to take. For my kids it is their best choice as a way to have in-classroom experience prior to college, but I am disappointed with the academic level of the classes.
AP statistics normally has only algebra 2 as a prerequisite. Is it lack of meeting prerequisites or lack of interest in this case?
But isn’t that the risk that is always taken when a 4 year college accepts transfer students from community colleges? In California, for example, these kinds of transfers are common and encouraged and there is even a special program that guarantees a community college student admission to a UC if they meet certain minimum requirements. So aren’t they then taking the same risk of academically underprepared students if we are assuming that some critical percentage of DE classes are not well taught? Yet I haven’t really heard of that being a problem. Maybe it actually is, but I haven’t heard that. So it seems that CC classes are in fact often adequate academic preparation even for a relatively rigorous UC education. So wouldn’t DE classes be the same? (Yes, of course, there are always some exceptions which is true for any class at any level, including AP classes - but overall, judging by the success of CC transfer students, it seems that most CC classes are adequate prep for a 4 year college.)
If the DE courses are just regular CC courses otherwise, they would be the same. But perhaps “college in the high school” DE courses may not be. Some private colleges accept some transfer credit from college courses taken while in high school, but not “college in the high school” DE courses.
Maybe so…Our high school doesn’t offer that - only DE classes through the CC - so I’m just not familiar. Although see socalmom007’s post above about the hoops she had to jump through to teach a DE class at a high school.
Both, I guess. The majority of my students are going to community colleges and state universities, about half and half. The students who want to take AP stats ended up taking DE math, much easier (what they said).
@bronzerfish Agreed. The DE program in NC was also so much easier to schedule than APs; our district only required junior and senior DE students to be on site at the HS for one period a day, so it freed up so much time.
D20 started DE classes in 9th. Students at her school racked up so many DE credits because they could continue taking classes the summer after senior year. It was a huge money saver for parents. The NC DE (Career and College Promise Program) was designed by and for the UNC system, so classes have to meet the requirements for transfer.
“As part of this agreement, all UGETC courses in which a student earns a grade of “C” or better will transfer for equivalent credit, as defined in the Comprehensive Articulation Agreement (CAA), to any UNC System university.”
for my D, DE was a lifesaver. She was not a student that was strong in math and science where most of the AP classes were, and overall had LD’s that prevented her from being in AP/honors classes. her Senior year was solely DE at the local community college. She did very well, and it boosted her confidence, and even got one of the professors to write her college recommendation. It made no longer feel dumb. She ended up going to a very good school, and without DE i dont think she would have gotten in. Some of her DE transferred towards her college credit. The other thing is that she was so over High school and by having classes just 2 days a week (our district allows full time at CC), she was able to get a job to earn extra money for college.
For my S, he was all about AP, and DE made not sense to him. All his AP credits transferred and he graduated college in 3 years.
In our district (San Francisco) and I’m sure other equity-focused districts, there’s something of a low-level hostility to rigor generally—maybe even a war of attrition. They view opportunities for rigor as counter to the detracking effort. (That is, they want to delay separating students in core subjects as long as possible.). Plus, we are in budget cuts due to a downward enrollment spiral (not unrelated!). Algebra I was eliminated from middle school entirely 6-7 years ago (though we are seeing signs of it possibly returning, now that the scheme has clearly failed to produce better outcomes). Our high schools usually limit how many APs kids can take per year. APs are being cut at some sites due to funding cuts (in some cases it’s more indirect than that and the extra prep period teachers get for teaching AP is being cut, creating a disincentive.) SFUSD has been a hit schizoid in its relationship with CCSF: some eras you were on your own, some they cooperated by hosting city college classes onsite at high schools, and others they created a special DE catalog of classes in which high schoolers could expect more handholding (I was once told by the city college coordinator that HS students are a high-maintenance pain in the ass, and i believe it!). There are also rules and international impediments to using city college to accelerate A-G, particularly in math (although sometimes, oddly, a particular high school will happily outsource a pushy kid’s math education to get her off their back). It’s strange. In any case, as someone who has had some training in UC holistic admissions — I’m a longtime college personal statement volunteer tutor for a nonprofit — I do think that DE classes set applicants apart beyond a GPA bump (at least for the UCs and in a different way via the algorithm for Cal Poly SLO and maybe the other CSUs). Plus it’s nice there’s no exam at the end. Plus the classes tend to be easier than APs in many subjects. One thing in our district is that the curated DE funnel is narrowly focused on subject verticals SFUSD likes — ethnic and gender studies, for example — which does not really promote viewpoint diversity and is not student-centered imo. It is political. For this reason, my two kids ended up taking online courses at colleges outside SF to get the class content that actually interested them (psychology, visual design, French, emergency medicine). Ymmv
We live in a rural low income small school district. Dual enrollment classes are the only option my kids have. The classes are taught by our school teachers in our building. If the student doesn’t pay for the credits (offered by the nearby CC and 2 other small colleges), the class is listed as honors on the transcript. By paying for the dual enrollment credit, the transcript lists it as dual enrollment. There is really no weighting to the classes for gpa.
As others have said, it’s a double edged sword. First, there are probably only 5-6 kids in each graduating class that could actually handle true AP classes. That is one of the reasons our district couldn’t even try to offer them. Most kids simply couldn’t pass the test. (A sad but true reality) That being said, the majority of our dual enrollment classes are really just an honors class in that subject. I worry that students taking DE classes in calculus, physics, biology or chemistry are not prepared for the next level of that class in college (even at the local state college). I can say this because I see the material my kids have covered in those classes and have heard about the rampant cheating and low test scores. In my daughter’s Chem class most kids fail the tests unless they cheat. Unfortunately teachers are under enough pressure for students to do well that they offer enough extra credit for students to still get an A. The students think they did great, even though they didn’t, and are not really well prepared when they do enter college. Fortunately, I know my kid’s abilities and am confident in understanding of the material (no cheating necessary)
We decided to have our kids use their dual enrollment credits very carefully. What was useful was that all their history, English, psychology, foreign language classes transferred in as the needed gen Ed requirements. My oldest actually used her calculus and physics credits because her major doesn’t really need those subjects, so taking calc in college certainly didn’t seem appealing at all. She was also able to use just the lab part of her biology dual enrollment to get out of the college lab part of biology 1. (The lab was rumored to be tons of work for only one credit). She chose not to use either the chem 1 or bio 1 credits and was really glad she took them again at college. She was able to pick up a minor because of her DE credits allowing space in her schedule freshman and sophomore year. D23 will also use all the gen Eds, but will actually use the chem 1, bio 1, calc and physics credits as well. Our school revamped the DE chem class and after comparing it to what my oldest learned at Pitt in Chem 1, I feel she will be fine. Having the dual enrollment credits is hopefully going to allow D23 to do a double major. I have been careful to counsel her to not let them put her in junior/senior level classes or even more difficult sophomore level classes (organic Chem) her freshman year. The other downside we saw was that most honors programs required you to take honors English at the college. D23 did not want to retake English comp and lit so unfortunately she didn’t apply for any honors programs.
I guess, in summary, it’s all in how the credits are used. It also depends on the students. I see it backfiring for many, but being helpful when used correctly. At our school, most kids will go to local state schools, so credits transfer well. Surprisingly Pitt took all my D21s credits and ISU has said they will take all of D23s. We knew that if D23 chose Cornell, that most likely none of the credits would have transferred and she would have started from scratch. I’m grateful that our district is lucky enough to even hire highschool teachers with masters in the advanced subjects. Many other rural schools in our area don’t even have that option.
Wow, this thread is such an eye opener! I really had no idea that there is so much variation around the country.
I feel this. There is an effort by some school administrators and board members to do that in our district (in NJ) now and the district is practically in a state of civil war over it. In fact, some of the SF people who organized the school board recalls in SF have met with activist parents in our district recently to offer advice. The board originally hired a detracking consultant who naturally recommended broad detractking here, and parents revolted. Instead they just detracked 6th grade. Then that caused performance to suffer so they used it as an excuse to scale back 7th grade accelerated courses and it seems like their strategy is to get their way by attrition of high performers impacted by their gradual removal of lower grade opportunities. And they similarly have tried to downplay academic achievements like National Merit.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out. The majority of parents strongly oppose the changes, but there’s a lot of non-parents in the very progressive community and the proponents are making every effort to project anyone opposed to detracking as racist, so its possible the incumbent board members can keep their seats by making the community fear its supporting racism if they are replaced. Meanwhile the recently brought in superintendent is pushing out any administrator or principal who are not supporting of her plans for detracking. She also claimed to be receiving racist emails from parents. So some intrepid parents used public records acts to ask for all the racist emails and it turned out there were none and she had made it up to stoke the fear of racism for anyone who opposed them. Like I said, civil war within the school district…
It’s crazy how differently this is handled everywhere.
Our not too large suburban district has some of each. We have DE taught by a regional public university (when my D took it it was at the university and streamed to the HS), so they are in the class with the college students but not at the same location. D said it was her hardest class in HS. They have AP, the teaching quality of which can’t be great, because AP test passing rates are low. D passed hers with 4s and 5s, because she self studies before the tests. We have to pay for DE and AP, it was expensive! So for lower SES this would be a hurdle
We also have an early college option, where kids attend their four years of HS at the local community college and take classes there. They miss out on the HS social life (I know a bunch of kids for whom this was the exact reason to pursue this option) and will graduate with an Associates and a HS diploma. Usually these kids end up being val and sal, because so many of their classes are weighted.
D was lucky that most of her AP and her DE was accepted at her T50 college. But she had to jump through many hoops to get the DE accepted.
Our neighboring low performing low SES urban school district had a big push last year to abandon AP altogether and only offer DE. This did not sit well with the higher SES high performing magnet school parents and is up in the air for now.