<p>Our son attended a suburban public where the passing rate was quite high, exceeding 85% in most subjects and approaching 100% in a few including CalcBC and CalcBc. The superlative calc results is directly attributable to a fantastic teacher.</p>
<p>But the across the board excellence in pass rate can be attributed to our district AP policies. Only jr/sr students may enroll in AP classes(sophs may petition but this is rare) and these students my enroll in only 3 AP classes per term(students may petition but this is also rare). Finally because of the above policies the AP classes syllabi are truely college level courses in terms of workload and teachers can avoid teaching to the test. More than 3 AP classes would have been intolerably stressful.</p>
<p>Regarding “teaching to the test”. That is the goal of AP courses, to meet a known standard. One reason many high schools offer “advanced” instead of “AP” courses in some subjects, so they can teach what they want to, not what the AP course is to cover. A poor teacher doesn’t prepare kids for the AP exam, a good one makes sure all of the students who do well in their course can do well on the AP exam, an excellent teacher with an excellent class can go beyond the scope of the AP material.</p>
<p>No matter how good the teacher is, it’s been our experience that teachers who run afterschool review sessions in the month before the test have better results, AP score wise.</p>
<p>“5” on AP exam does not mean at all that the class was the same level as in college. This being said, some subjects will be required to be repeated in college anyway. Like first Bio for pre-meds might be required to be taken over, despite of “5” on AP exam. D’s first Bio at college was sooo much more difficult than her AP Bio (“5” on exam), she was glad that she was required to take it, she would not survive a second Bio class w/o it. That is despite her HS using the same college book in Honors Bio class, which she took before she took AP Bio.</p>