Posted on 05/24/2011 7:25:45 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Not long ago, honors courses were considered a hallmark of student achievement, a designation that impressed colleges and made parents beam.
Now, those courses are vanishing from public schools nationwide as administrators move toward a more inclusive curriculum designed to encourage underrepresented minority students to join their high-achieving peers in college-level Advanced Placement classes.
Fairfax County’s public schools are at the forefront of the movement, nudging would-be honors students toward more-rigorous AP courses, despite criticism from some parents that eliminating honors will have the reverse effect and lead some students to choose less-demanding “standard education” classes instead of AP.
Honors courses are generally taught from the same lesson plan as regular classes but at a faster pace and in greater depth. An AP course contains altogether more-challenging material — charting a path that coheres to national standards, which are heavily endorsed by the Fairfax school system.
This fall, Fairfax will discontinue honors-level courses in subjects where an AP class is offered, drawing the ire of parents who want to restore what they call an academic middle ground. They have formed a group called Restore Honors Courses.
Prince William County took an even bolder stance about 10 years ago, doing away with the honors track. There has been resistance to that in other school systems — including Montgomery’s and Loudoun’s, where the honors option has been scaled back.
Considerable opposition from Fairfax parents has prompted the school board to review its decision to do away with high school honors courses that for years served as an alternative to basic and AP courses.
...
“We’ve found that traditionally underrepresented minorities do not access the most-rigorous track when three tracks are offered. But when two tracks are offered, they do,” said Peter Noonan, Fairfax’s assistant superintendent for instructional services.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The government AP exams then.
Depends on the college, I believe scores range from 1 to 5 with 5 receiving the most credit. 3 gets you maybe some credit. Below 3 you get nothing.
They just said the exam was easier than what they did in school.
"Here is a shocker: According to a study called "Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing" that appears in the May 2011 issues of Perspectives on Psychological Science, white people believe all-white racism is now a bigger problem than anti-black sentiment."
I have encouraged my children, two of whom have graduated high school with two years of AP credits, to use this basis in knowledge not to make their college education shorter, but to take more challenging college courses.
In my opinion, most high school classes should match the rigor of AP courses.
By the nineteen seventies University schools of education had practically eliminated courses on teaching the exceptional child. Today, such a course might exist as an elective. It was always a difficult sell to interest the prospective teacher of mediocre aptitude to take an interest in the best of his or her students. It is always so much easier to teach to the mediocrities.
I don't know. My daughter, who is in medical school and has a BA in biology, said that AP biology was one of the hardest courses she has taken.
Yeah, but I bet her self-esteem was AWESOME!/sarc
That sums up the situation I have observed with princess riverdawg and many of her friends. There is an “arms race” among the college-bound kids to accumulate the most resume-building “weapons,” including taking the largest possible number of AP courses, being deeply involved in extracurricular activities (but not in an unfocused way), and building a personal “narrative” or “story” for your college application that will attract the attention of some admissions officer. It's really out of control ...
Great, so let’s throw some kids into these harder AP courses that they have no business in so they can fail miserably and not learn half what they would have learned in a class that was to their level.
Homeschooling is inherently advanced placement because it’s teaching kids at the level they’re ready for instead of trying to fit 30-40 kids into the same rate of learning.
You have to pay to take the AP exams, I think. And it’s not cheap. I think that could be why the poor kids didn’t sign up for the AP classes if there was a middle tier available.
There is an obsession, but it partly stems from the fact it’s much harder to make a living without a college degree. Now, it’s hard to make a living WITH one, due to oversaturation and a reduction in the overall value of a degree since kids who shouldn’t have one are able to get one.
I took AP Biology in ‘95. I got a “3” which counted for a few elective credits in college.
It was exceedingly difficult.
Yes, the AP biology and AP chemistry courses were very difficult, but it’s not that hard to score a 3 on the AP exams, according to p.r.
Even in the 90s they had a lot of that.
I never did the “extra-curricular” thing much, I was kind of a dork, I didn’t get along with the “cool” kids, but didn’t have enough geek-cred to hang out with the geeks either...and my athletic ability is bested by Stephen Hawking. So I just - gasp! - focused on my studies! The horror!
Our older son is a high school senior, and I completely agree with your observations. The bright kids in our community have been busting their shoes for years to accumulate resume builders of all sorts. We see it in our Boy Scout troop, where many of the boys knock themselves out to get to Eagle and then stop coming to meetings, because their primary motivation was to add to their resume. They're accomplished good kids who are learning a great deal, but some of them are becoming drones in the process. Our sons have never gone to summer 'nerd camp'. They've always gone to traditional outdoor summer camp or Scout camp, and engaged in summer swimming and other activities. They work hard all year, and we want them to be well rounded young men who still know how to dream and innovate and not just spit back rote learning.
Our older son has wrapped up the last of his AP classes, and what we've seen is that many schools do not accept AP credits. The primary function of the AP classes has been to learn more and to demonstrate that he is willing to challenge himself. They have made him a stronger candidate for college applications, but will not save us much money on college tuition. He has decided not to attempt to place out of his college calculus or physics classes, because he thinks they are so fundamental to engineering that he'd rather repeat some content than take a chance on having an incomplete foundation.
Each student will choose a different path, and I think that's a good thing. Our public schools should be offering a range of options and solid guidance to students to help them choose the best courses and levels for their goals and abilities.
There's a phrase to trigger a gag reflex.
If the kids were given a more rigorous curricula starting in first grade, by the time they got to high school the AP level courses would not be so daunting.
I am also a big supporter of rigorous occupational courses for juniors and seniors who choose to go that direction. I want a well trained car mechanic just like I want a well trained doctor.
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