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And then there’s the AP Euro class at our public high school which warns students before they sign up to expect 2 hours of homework in that one class nearly every night. Massive amounts of reading and writing are involved in that course, and there is only so much students can do to cut down the time they need to spend to get it all done. </p>
<p>Our public high school’s AP Calc teacher doesn’t require students to do the homework. They can if they want and many do; but homework is not part of the grade and students who don’t need to do it don’t have to. My son never, ever did. That freed up a lot of time in the evenings to devote to the massive amount of homework assigned by the APUSH and AP Euro teachers. </p>
<p>That’s the trouble with talking about AP classes; everyone’s mileage seems to vary widely, not just from school to school but from course to course. It is just not possible to talk in generalities about AP. At my daughter’s school, most top juniors and seniors are taking all AP’s in their academic subjects. Meh. It’s not that hard or time consuming. At her previous high school, <em>some</em> top juniors and seniors are taking all AP’s in their academic subjects and it is quite difficult and very time consuming. I am stunned at the variance from one school to the next. I think this Newsweek ranking thing is huge BS and not at all a good thing for high schools to wrap their curriculum planning committees around.</p>