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<p>@nightchef: You hit the nail on the head.</p>
<p>nightchef:</p>
<p>Okay, you and I are in more agreement than we think. How you and I are defining ‘gate-keeping’ is a little different. I wouldn’t characterize what your university does as ‘gate-keeping’ in my opinion. A student still has a chance to air their ‘case’ for wanting to take a particular course. Sounds fair and reasonable, not arbitrary.</p>
<p>The working definition of ‘gate-keeping’ that I’m familiar with is a practice much more arbitrary. (i.e. if you are 1 point off on some standardized test you can’t get in, end of story). I don’t favor complete self-selection, but I agree that students and their parents should be part of the process. </p>
<p>Once more, back to the U of Tex study. Pardon me, but I’m failing to see your point about why it matters HOW the few hundred thousand students who were studied got into AP courses or didn’t. Students who were both in AP and not in AP were studied, so I don’t see how the ‘gate-keeping’ factor could’ve or should’ve been studied in this instance. </p>
<p>What bearing would it have had on the results, since students who were both enrolled and not enrolled were studied? What would it ‘prove’ or ‘disprove’ and how would they even go about studying that in the first place? Sounds like a red herring, to me.</p>
<p>Attempts were made to compare “like” students demographically whether they were in AP or not. Moreover, since all of the students who were enrolled in the Texas State University System who had attended public high schools in Texas were studied, we can presume that students from ‘gate-keeping’ high schools and ‘open’ high schools were included, regardless. As we all know, schools have local control so whenever you study a large group of public high schools you would find a wide degree of variance in their policies pertaining to AP or otherwise. The fact that they didn’t ‘categorize’ students based on their high schools policies is/was irrelevant and I fail to see what insight it would/would’ve provided.</p>
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I won’t get into the “could’ve”, but here’s the “should’ve”:</p>
<p>In a school where students are only allowed to take an AP if they have a previous record of academic success in that subject, then the set “students who take APs” is more or less identical to the set “high achievers.” Therefore there’s nothing particularly surprising, or informative, in finding that these students, as a group, continue their high achievement in college. </p>
<p>In order for the results to have the kind of prescriptive meaning you have claimed for them–in order to be able to say, on the basis of this study, “taking APs in high school will improve your performance in college,” you’d have to design a study in which you were comparing apples to apples, i.e., the difference between AP-takers and non-AP-takers with similar academic records before taking the classes. There was some effort to account for this by matching SAT scores, but as we all know, SAT scores correlate very imperfectly with academic achievement.</p>
<p>Okay, our high school with the lowest graduation rate, worst discipline problems, and worst SAT scores and state assessments made the list as one of the best. Why? Simply because they have the IB program in this school. And why does this school have the IB program? It is the only way they can make AYP. What a joke these rankings are.</p>
<p>nightchef:</p>
<p>First, correlation is not the same thing as causation, of course. These are complicated issues. </p>
<p>However, I must say you are a little all over the map on this. First, you want to call the researchers’ independance into question, which I understand, but since no one has disputed it, or their data you jump to a red herring (i.e. they “should’ve studied the high school’s policies”). (As if that would tell us anything, since they already compared AP and non-AP kids and compared “like” students, both academically and demographically.)</p>
<p>Now you are taking a new turn, seeing that it would be almost impossible (and pointless) for them to factor in the policies of all the high schools involved you now say they should “design a study” in which they compare like students “before taking the classes”. Should we all hold our breath until this magical study comes out before we follow the data that’s currently out there, the presently discussed study not included? Based on your responses, it appears that if the study you want done came to conclusions that don’t back up the way you already feel, you will throw new caveats at it? </p>
<p>Certainly, as I mentioned, these are complex matters and the aforementioned study is not the final word. I must say, however, that I just don’t understand the mindset that sees allowing students the opportunity to challenge themselves as a bad thing? I hate to quote George W. Bush, but he referred to it as “The soft bigotry of low expectations.” </p>
<p>I’d be happy for you to show me a study that shows that allowing college-bound kids to take an AP course has a deliterious effect on their college outcomes. Until then, I’m going to come down on the side of advocating for opportunities for kids.</p>
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To use one real world example … then the number of students taking AP math more than triples in one year … and the following year about 1/2 of the extra students were not up to the pace of the AP course which was slowed down for the new students … this happened the year the HS removed themselves as a gatekeeper and any student who pushed to get into an AP was allowed to … bottom-line the weakest new students lowered the quality of the class for all the students in the class.</p>
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Okay, the air’s starting to get a little thick in here. ;)</p>
<p>I’m an advocate of opportunities for kids, too–age-appropriate, preparedness-appropriate opportunities. (I take it, from the way you discuss this issue, that if a kid who’s never climbed higher than the second floor of his parents’ duplex wanted to climb Mount Everest, you’d object to anyone standing in his way?) Yes, kids need opportunities to challenge themselves–but they also need wise adults to tell them when they’re biting off more than they can chew.</p>
<p>And as for the first sentence quoted above–I’ve never claimed that APs have a “deleterious effect.” I only challenged your assertion that the beneficial effect of taking APs was a settled fact. Maybe the question “does taking APs help kids?” has an answer like, “yes, for some kids, in some subjects, at some stages in their high school careers.” </p>
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Should we describe flawed data as authoritative just because there isn’t better information available?</p>