<p>nightchef:</p>
<p>I certainly respect your perspective and I wish things were different than they are. Unfortunately, we’re still at the point where, nationally, very few schools can meet the threshold that Newsweek sets up to be on their list. At this point, gate-keeping and old ways of thinking are still very, very widespread and entrenched at the majority of U.S. high schools. Rewarding schools for AP participation is a way to incentivize other school to follow these research-based practices. </p>
<p>There are 27,500+ public high school in the U.S. There are about 1,600 on the list. Let’s say that the way Newsweek organizes this list incentivizes even just a few thousand more schools to open up their AP programs a bit. That literally equates to tens of thousands of students getting an opportunity to take AP classes, which are proven to be beneficial to college-bound kids. </p>
<p>When the list started in 1998, only about 250 schools could meet the ‘Challenge Index’ threshold of 1.00. Twelve years later, there are 1,600 schools and if the list incentivized those 1,350 schools to offer more opportunities to kids, I think those schools, their students and the educational system as a whole benefited.</p>
<p>As far as kids taking multiple classes and exams, I can only speak from my experience and that of our neighboring schools (Chicago, north suburbs). I’ve read about a few schools who require students to take one AP class while in high schools. These were only a few schools in urban areas who were just trying “academic shock treatment”. While I disagree with what those couple of schools are doing, I certainly don’t blame them for trying something different, as we all well-know many of our urban schools need help.</p>
<p>I haven’t heard of ANY school forcing kids to take multiple AP classes for the purposes of making the list or otherwise. At our school, many of the top 25% of the graduating class take multiple AP courses, but certainly no one is forcing them to take these. One of our neighborhing schools has twice the participation we do and they are in a similar boat. Many of their top students take multiple AP courses because they want to (obviously for college). I certainly don’t see anything wrong with allowing a kid who is prepared to take multiple AP courses if they so desire. The other option is having them sit in a class that is below their ability, get an easy “A” and be bored.</p>