I've always wondered: Why can't some schools boast large AP programs as other schools do?

xiggi
Fri, 09 Jan 2015 18:00:01 +0000

Schools who don’t provide AP classes on the basis of “we’re better than that and can do it better” are shortchanging their kids if the kids are capable of AP. College costs way too much these days–those AP credits can be worth a few thousand dollars in the long run to an individual.

That is not necessarily true. For starters, one needs to differentiate the offering of the classes from the actual exam taking and earning the credits. Then, one needs to look at two additional elements: the real value of those HIGH SCHOOL courses in a bona fide college education and the negative impact the AP program can have on an entire school as it brings discrimination academically and mostly on a SES basis. Many schools have jumped on the AP/IB bandwagon for ulterior motives as it allows to pay certain teachers more and offer them a better teaching environment through putting students to a perverse sifting mechanism. Who is not to like teaching the nicest, most polite, better educated, more cuddled students and earn a bonus on the way?

Yet, this discriminatory system based on a loose system of preferences that goes beyond strict academics also hurt the core of what a school should be, and that is teaching everyone with a similar attention and dedication. In addition to the “forced” dropout that impacts so many in the 9th grade, this “school within a school” only brings a further deterioration to the school and one that is not balanced by the “mediocre” benefits of the AP in terms of finances.

While I fully understand that the AP is marketed as a cost savings, it also departs from its original intent: being an Advanced Placement system that does NOT come as a lowering of the full value of a college education. It should NOT be used as a CREDIT that lowers the graduation requirements but as a source of higher placement only.

In the end, there is indeed shortchanging associated with the AP, but it works just in an opposite way than quoted above. Most kids are indeed shortchanged from receiving an adequate education in high school and robbed from a bona fide education at the college level by accepting a mile wide/inch deep glorified high school class.

A great program in its original shape that has been entirely distorted by the lethal combination of selfish high schools officials and the marketing genius of the “new” TCB. What we need is to have high school being GOOD high schools and stop pretending they can deliver college courses when they hardly can educate our students, and allow colleges to pick up the pace without having to waste expensive resources on providing mostly remedial material to shore up the immense holes left by the high schools.