AP classes: Making kids smarter or College Board richer?
I hope everyone had a good holiday. I am delighted to be back in Georgia after a week slogging through 22 inches of snow visiting family in the Northeast.
If anyone has kept up with education reading, a good debate raged on The New York Times Room for Debate blog about the value and integrity of AP classes. In my past reporting on the boom in AP classes, I have interviewed several of the experts quoted in the blog.
I found that the most consistent research suggested that AP classes were most valuable when the students took the AP test and scored a 3 or better. One of the researchers in the Times piece told me in an interview a few years back that the positive outcome on college performance was only visible in those students who had taken the AP test along with the course. She saw no enhancement in college performance in students who had taken AP classes in high school but had not sat for the AP exams.
(If you read the NYT, you will see that view espoused by several experts.) With my own two teens, I insisted that they take the AP tests if they were in an AP class.
My first inkling of the possible overselling of AP classes came about 10 years ago when I talked to two Georgia Tech math professors who maintained that AP classes were not the equivalent of college classes and that students who came to Tech loaded with math credits from AP classes were not ready for more advanced math. They thought the enthusiasm for AP was a scam to enrich the College Board, which owns the brand and the tests. (That view is voiced in the Times blog.)
Since then, I have heard that sentiment echoed by college professors in other disciplines. I know that many high school teachers say that the quality of AP classes has fallen because too many unqualified kids are being directed to the classes.
But were the courses ever all they were cracked up to be? Were they ever truly the equivalent of a college class?
Rather than push AP classes, is it better to simply let ambitious and able high school students take classes at Tech or GSU, as many of them now do?
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61 comments Add your comment
Ole Guy
December 28th, 2009
6:34 pm
Realistic Parent, I appreciate your arguement, however, I am not altogether sure you both read AND understood my comments. My observations were of kids whose parents confronted principals and insisted their kids be enrolled in AP, mediocre grades notwithstanding.
To be sure, parents should become an integral component in the composition and direction of their kids’ educational experience. However, my experience and observations were of parents who, over the objections of educational professionals, had the final say in their kids’ classroom destinys, both in terms of academics and deportment. It is for this reason that, I feel, parents need to butt out of these decisions. Now if I may elaborate on my previous comment, they need to honor the decisions of the professionals…that’s why we pay them…to make decisions regarding the educational processes of their kids.
The next time you’re at Hartsfield, try having the last word with one of the crew…they, like those teachers, are the trained professionals who are paid to make decisions and act upon them. To be sure, there are times when your input, as a passenger, is welcomed, however, the crews’ final decision stands.
In the school setting, there is a time and place…PTA, parent-teacher conference, etc…where parental input is warmly accepted. HOWEVER, that input is not necessarily the final word…or at least it shouldn’t be.
ANARCHY: I suggest, Parent, you may wish to ponder the definition and it’s impact on the student population in your kids’ school…have a good day.
Been there a while
December 28th, 2009
8:25 pm
My child took several AP classes during her Junior and Senior year. She found the greatest benefit was working with other students of similar ability and not having distractions in class from behavior problem students. She scored well on her AP exams and was able to exempt a little more than a semester of college work from her schedule. This enabled her to graduate in 4 years with a double major. She found her AP classes really taught her how to study and helped her be prepared for college.
Karen
December 28th, 2009
10:12 pm
As a parent of an AP student who just graduated from college, I can tell you that AP did prepare him for college. He waltzed through his calc classes at UGA thanks to his wonderful AP high school teacher. However, he barely made it through his first programming class, because he said all the “other kids” had AP and he did not – therefore he was not ready for college programming. Needless to say – he left computer science and ended up with a degree in English – excelled also due to a beginning in AP English.
Shannon, M.Div.
December 29th, 2009
9:34 am
I believe I can speak to this issue, having taken four AP classes in high school and joint enrolled with Clayton State during my senior year; I graduated from Lovejoy High School in 1992. Further, I now teach several courses a year at Georgia State. I scored two threes, a four, and a five on the AP courses, and As in the college courses. The AP courses I took required far more work than was required by my college courses. Part of the reason and justification for that, however, is that the AP courses had far more rigorous entrance requirements than most public colleges. The quality of students in the classroom matters just as much as the quality of the teacher.
My senior year was surreal, as I spent my mornings at high school in three AP courses, which were highly competitive and focused; then I would drive over to the college and be in class with folks taking psychology and entry writing coursework. That was a very different experience. The material was not more difficult, and the expectations were far lower than my AP courses, but the classes I took (psych, sociology, logic, etc.) were in disciplines not studied in high school. Because of this, I encountered entirely new vocabularies in those courses.
I’m particularly sensitive to this because the courses I teach at GSU as part of my doctoral student duties are in communication (speech), another discipline not addressed in Georgia high schools. (I have a friend in the program who taught high school speech in Texas for years–it’s a standard course there. She marvels that folks entering her freshman classes don’t already know the basics, but those of us from Georgia expect that our students know little about speech when they arrive).
Bottom line: when comparing joint enrollment to AP, consider both that joint enrollment exposes students to brand new subject matter instead of building on subjects already known. Also, one has to consider the rest of the class. The bar for enrolling in AP is far higher than the bar for enrolling in college after high school. Not everyone in college prep courses is allowed into AP, and the class dynamic is far different when all the students are at the same level of ambition and intellectual achievement. Unlike high school classes, college courses do not tend to be stratified by achievement ranking. Both AP and JE are valuable, but they are also quite different.
I’m curious that no one has brought up the IB program (International Baccalaureate). Frankly, I think that may be the best of the three, and I wished my high school had offered it. It includes a public service/volunteering component in addition to the academic rigor, and it’s an international qualification instead of a national credential like AP.
parent of JE-er
December 29th, 2009
12:25 pm
I think too many HS courses, AP or otherwise, involves busy work – I suppose teachers are trying to help students develop “study habits,” but it’s like students who already have the habit just get buried under the sheer amount of work that isn’t really helpful for learning and those who don’t have it won’t get it from those busy work, either.
Ole Guy
December 29th, 2009
6:52 pm
Shannon, I believe you are the most-recent voice of experience on the issues of AP, and concurrent high school/college attendance…my view, really my question, from a completely non-educator standpoint is: given the proximity to a college campus, why would a promising high school student even bother with AP when the “real deal” is so readily available? Not that (most) college courses are that mind-boggling (chemistry being the stand-alone exception), do AP courses serve to “mimic” their college-level counterparts, or are they, as has been suggested in comments allied to this topic, simply busy work?
It seems to me that once subject mastery has been achieved in all areas of academic endeavour, AP, if practical, should be completely bypassed in favour of attendance at the local institution of higher learning. Once funding, and credit transfer issues are hammered out, it would seem this would be the most-logical course of action. 1) exceptional students wouldn’t get bored and “stymied” by the “No Child…” issues, meanwhile 2) the “average” (plus/minus) students, like yours truly circa mid-sixties, could “flounder about” in a sink-or-swim environment. I realize this may appear somewhat crude in practice, however, in reality, it seems to be most-appropriate.
The end question, as I have observed in many comments, would be…WHAT’S BEST FOR THE KIDS?
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K. S.
March 26th, 2010
2:26 pm
My daughter took AP and IB classes, but didn’t score high enough on the exams to count them towards any college credit, which I believe is the point of taking these classes. I would suggest to parents of high school students to have kids enroll in Community College evening courses (you may need special permission, but many are open to Juniors & Seniors who maintain a certain GPA) that are guaranteed to articulate to the college of their choice.
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July 24th, 2010
9:02 am
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Randall
July 29th, 2010
11:18 am
If you score a 4 or a 5 on an AP test, you should know almost everything that they teach in that test’s corresponding college class at an average state school. At a more difficult school, you will probably be missing some pieces, but professors in higher level classes usually understand that some of their students are AP students and so spend a week or two reviewing concepts that might have been missed. That’s my experience at least. I, for one, am very glad I had the opportunity to take AP classes. I saved my parents about $10,000 and had no trouble with coursework in the higher classes. And my AP classes were at a public school.