Advanced Placement — or “AP” as it’s usually called — is now a hot-button topic in local and state pedagogic circles.
AP comes from a very good place. Why not properly challenge — and accommodate — your very best students by providing an opportunity for them to take college-caliber courses? They can get a GPA spike, and they get an opportunity to test out of general education requirements in college.
But there’s an enormous problem. To get that college credit, students must pass a rigorous, standardized AP test. Alas, an alarming rate of these students are not passing it. In Florida, it’s less than half (42.9 per cent). In Hillsborough County, it’s barely a third (36 per cent).
The cause? As basic as it conceivably could be. Fundamental questions about the quality of students and the quality of their teachers.
The genesis? The AP concept was meant to challenge, stimulate and reward the most talented students. Advanced courses for advanced students. Serious college-level courses are, by definition, only for a select, high school few.
Now, in the name of opportunity, inclusiveness and state grading formulas, the AP classes are no longer as selective as they used to be. Florida, in fact, is considered, dubiously, a national leader when it comes to an egalitarian approach to a merit matter. Middle-of-the-road students, including some with border-line reading scores, are more the norm than the best and brightest in many AP classes.
Moreover, it used to be that the best teachers were culled from the ranks and granted the opportunity — and privilege — to teach AP courses. You didn’t have to be Mr. Chips to appreciate the unique challenges – and rewards – of instructing smart, motivated students and not having to teach down to the lowest common denominator.
Now we know that with so many more AP students, the need for more AP teachers has become acute. In truth, there are not nearly enough. No surprise, then, that schools can no longer be as selective as they used to be. Consequently, a number of AP students are being taught by those who wouldn’t have been asked previously. Some might eventually become proficient with workshop help and mentors. But a whole bunch of AP students, many of them non-traditional, are not being helped by teachers struggling with the process of gaining on-the-AP-job experience.
Here’s a suggestion: quality control. The concept’s been around for a while. In this case, it can only be implemented in the context of fewer, better-prepared students being taught by the best that high school faculties can produce.
AP needs to return to its Advanced Placement roots. For too long AP has meant Agenda Progress. In the good names of opportunity and diversity, AP has become like so many other facets of contemporary, secondary-school curricula. Diluted.