April 15, 2008
AP Courses for All in D.C. High Schools?
Yesterday, the Post ran a story by Jay “Challenge Index” Mathews profiling Bell Multicultural High School in Ward 1, which offers only Advanced Placement (AP) English courses to its 11th and 12th graders. I read the story with interest, not just because the students and teachers Mathews interviews are my former students and colleagues from the years I taught at Bell (2005-2007), but because I was also an “AP for all” teacher, and once struggled with some very mixed feelings about it.
One take, and the one that Mathews runs with, is that this is a great thing. Students, many of whom are immigrants with only a few years of English under their belts, feel empowered, and any educator worth their salt will tell you that students only achieve as high as the expectations set for them. Why not give kids the rigorous coursework they will need to have a real shot at college, instead of continuing the culture of mediocrity D.C. public schools are infamous for? In my classroom, this meant teaching students with 4th grade reading levels how to write an analytical essay about James Joyce, and watching as every single one of my 80+ students showed up in May to take the three-hour AP Literature Exam – the only day all year I ever had perfect attendance.
But there are other considerations. There are 11th and 12th grade students at Bell who say they’re grateful for being offered the opportunity for AP courses, but who also still struggle with putting punctuation at the end of their sentences. What is best for those students? Is there room for both rhetoric and grammar in a single class period? (And if you’ve never taught, don’t try to answer that.)
I am frustrated, but not surprised, that Mathews glosses over these very real issues. After all, he’s the father of the controversial “Challenge Index,” a method of ranking high schools used by Newsweek (owned by the same company as the Post), in which the number of AP courses taken by students at a school are divided by the number of graduating seniors. (Not the number of exams passed, mind you – the number taken.) A school like Bell, where close to half of the incoming 9th grade class drops out before the end of their freshman year, and the entire 11th and 12th grade is taking an AP test, tends to place pretty high on the ranking, even if that measure doesn’t even begin to take into account how well students are being taught. The "Challenge Index" has come under fire for its deficiencies over the last few years, most recently in the form of a boycott by 39 small school districts from five states who say the ranking is an inappropriate use of data and largely meaningless in practical terms.
Photo by dangerbird
Earlier this year, The College Board, which administers the AP program, released a report showing that while the number of AP tests has risen across the country, the proportion of tests receiving a passing score has fallen, and the mean score is down for the fourth year in a row. At Bell last year, three students passed the AP English exam - out of 226.
D.C. public schools must become more rigorous, and Bell is certainly leading the way on that front. But what Mathews leaves out, and what Bell is figuring out, is that slapping an AP label on a class isn’t enough. As my friend Dan Gordon, a 12th grade AP English teacher at Bell, told me, “The idea isn't to pretend reading levels and achievement disparities don't exist. The idea is to do everything we can to overcome those challenges.”
Give our kids that rigorous curriculum, by all means, but give them everything they need to learn it, too. There have to be supports, lots of them, in place for struggling students, and safeguards to make sure the highest-performing kids aren’t being slowed up. True, last year a mere three Bell students out of 226 passed the AP English exam. But only one student passed the year before that. And this summer, when the scores come back, I’m willing to bet the number will be higher still. Transition takes time; it’s messy and makes more work for everyone, but is worth it in the end. As one student told me, “I never thought I could learn this stuff.” That same student has already been accepted to three colleges.
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Interesting dilemma you present here, the answer depends on which comes first the chicken or the egg? Do you wait until students are showing progress before you start challenging them or does challenging them lead to progress? As a (former?) teacher you would probably know the answer to this better than most.
Give them a challenge, and the tools to meet that challenge, and most kids will excel. Dumbing down a curriculum to the lowest common denominator hasn't served us well so far. It's not like we have that much to lose anyway; DC's already at the bottom of nationwide rankings for verbal and math skills. The real challenge is whether central admin will provide the support the teachers need. They don't have a great track record in this regard.
And I love that 2001: A Space Odyssey mashup pic. That kid should either be buried on the moon, floating around Jupiter, or clobbered by guys in monkey outfits.
It's an interesting debate that seems at least partially very East Coast to me. As a suburban midwesterner, AP courses were seen as elitist and inherently bad as such: pitting student against student and teacher against teacher.
Not all high schools felt like this of course (the wealthier school districts on the North Shore of Chicago had all these types of things, but they were snobs. Or so we were told.)
Eventually, as my small suburban town doubled in size and more people moved the highly competitive districts closer to Chicago, the demand for tracking and AP classes became too strong. These status symbols seem (along with fancier cars in the student parking lot) became "normal."
Perhaps though if everyone is taking these courses, if everyone is taking these tests -- that will help to foster, at least partially, a culture of equal status. Instead of indicating difference. I was warned against coming to college on the East Coast. That I wouldn't fit in socially. It was largely true. I found that my Midwest upbringing didn't prepare me for old money. And didn't prepare me for a college curriculum based on writing and reading.
I've adapted, but I wonder if I've lost some ideal of democracy along the way.
There are two problems here. On the one hand, forcing all students to take the AP tests may increase their self esteem, but it won't help the most helpless (those who, say, don't understand basic punctuation) get into college or get college credit. As Rachel points out, the scores on AP exams have been dropping for some time now--this is largely a function of more and more under-qualified students taking the test. I question the usefulness of forcing everyone to take the course if they're all going to get 1s or 2s anyway.
The real danger here is the second problem: Students who legitimately belong in college-level English (or math, or science, or whatever) courses are going to get hurt as their teachers spend more and more time teaching Johnny how to read at a 12th grade level. You've got to remember that AP courses are not designed as high school honors classes. They're supposed to resemble college courses, and they're supposed to be very, very difficult. If you can't read at an adult level, you shouldn't be in an AP English Lit class. You're doing a disservice to the kids who actually have a shot at passing the test.
Dumbing down a curriculum to the lowest common denominator hasn't served us well so far.
After a frighteningly scatological morning from the Monkey he chimes in with the above nugget of wisdom.
@sb2
Your point about under-qualified students in AP classes is a good one, but if a student is motivated isn't a more challenging curriculum going to benefit them regardless of whether they pass the AP exam or not?
We should absolutely encourage students to be challenged and take more difficult courses. My big fear is that AP will become marginalized by the popularity and desire of students to have it, and so the grading scale will be redistributed and dumbed down in much the same way that the general curriculums have been. Once that happens I guess we'll need an AAP exam.. Not everyone that wants to should necessarily be taking these classes, but crap, it's a lot better to have it and challenge people than to assume they're all lowest common denominator.
I've had email arguments with Jay Mathews about this subject. His view is that taking AP classes is beneficial to all students b/c it gives them college-level educational challenge. Fine. But if a kid can't even compete at junior high school levels, how the heck is he/she going to deal with college-level material. What it does is put a kid in a class where he can't succeed, to take a test he can't pass, and to force the teacher to teach to his level.
I'm all for increasing the number of AP classes offered in all schools. But making it mandatory is ridiculous. Mathews has made his Challenge Index into a nice money-maker. But he simply ignores any evidence showing that it's not a good measurement. All he cares about is how many kids take AP, not how many take and pass the exam.
In my mind, that exam is the whole point since it grants college credits. But Mathews would rather have increasing numbers of AP exam failures, b/c at least all those failing kids would have gotten exposure to a college-level course.
What is the requirement to get into AP? I went to a very good high school in Massachusetts, where having AP classes was included in the curriculum and it was the goal to get into them.
If I remember correctly, it was solely based on your GPA and past performance in a subject. Typically, if you got an A (95 or above) in Honors English in 9th, 10th and 11th grade, you qualified for AP English in 12th grade. And then, your AP test score determined whether or not you placed out of Freshman English at college.
Isn't this true universally?
Drew: I went to a not so good high school in a rural area. However, our AP classes worked the exact same way.
We were only offered a few though. Schools in cities had many more AP classes, not to mention larger variety of classes and options to attend magnet schools.
The problem with an AP curriculum is that it runs contrary to a social promotion agenda. All students will never be able to pass AP. This doesn't mean they're stupid, it just means they currently lack the skills to advance to an AP level. The system needs to focus on bringing those kids up and at the same time motivating the AP kids to excel. In the meantime, the non-AP 4th Graders get to enjoy hilarious tales of derring do told by the 18-year-olds who've been held back.
Or you just do like they always do and lower the bar so that anyone who exhibits minimal brain activity and autonomous nerve functions qualifies for AP level classes, such as "Introduction to Algebra without Counting Your Toes" and "Hooked on Phonics: Rap Snacks Edition."
"Your point about under-qualified students in AP classes is a good one, but if a student is motivated isn't a more challenging curriculum going to benefit them regardless of whether they pass the AP exam or not?"
A motivated but slightly underqualified student who takes an AP course would benefit, sure. But a kid who reads at a sixth grade level, regardless of how motivated he is, won't get much out of a true AP level course. All he'll end up doing is wasting valuable time the teacher could have spent helping a student with a legit shot at passing the test.
And let's be honest: if you put every DC student into AP courses, how many of them would be motivated to come to class, let alone try their hardest to pass the test?
What will ultimately end up happening is a dumbing down of AP courses. Again, this is a tragedy for the kids who actually are qualified to take AP courses--they are the ones who are going to end up failing AP tests because they weren't getting good enough instruction or tough enough assignments; they are the ones who will end up missing out on college credits and the opportunity to skip a semester's worth of classes (no small matter for the low-income students that populate our city's school system).
It's sad but true: not every high school junior/senior is able to do college-level work. I don't see how pretending that this isn't a fact helps anyone--but I do see how it will hurt good students.
"Isn't this true universally?"
I don't think so. At my school, the AP courses replaced honors courses where appropriate. Pretty much anyone could take them, but our class was only ~180 people so everyone more or less knew who was qualified without a formal process. At the end of the year, it was your option to take the test. Some people didn't take the tests because their college didn't accept the scores for credit.
@sb2
An eminently reasonable response, most unusual here at DCist.
the real question is can the dcps students succeed in AP courses in arlington/fairfax/montgomery county/etc? i feel wrong saying dc is a black hole, but when surrounded by consistently overperforming schools you have to question the caliber of AP for all classes in DC...
UGH. jay mathews needs to officially get a job with ap/college board by now.
Well, I do what I can. Perhaps someone can mention gentrification to touch off a real firestorm so I can go back into hiding...
Man I wish I still had my hands on the documents that said, when I taught in CT, that kids who took AP courses, across the board, were more prepared for college than kids who didn't: even if they didn't even take the AP exam.
I agree with most of the stuff on this thread. I will say that goal-setting has to come first, and that in education, goals that can be calibrated widely are few and far between (Does an A at Cardozo mean the same as an A at a school in Bethesda?). AP is the high bar. And all kids aren't going to get there now, nor will all kids be supported to the extent they should.
But, let's face it: DC kids being challenged, positively, are better off with our without support.
Finally:
Bell does have support in the form of College Summit and other programs, so I'd say this is a good thing.
Clearly, improving test scores and greater AP participation will only attract more affluent gentrifiers to DC, hastening Chocolate City's transformation into Lattéland. Only a fisheyed fool would fail to recognize this as anything except "the plan" in action. Before you know it, we might actually have an intelligent exchange of ideas among our younger people, including discussions of wrassling pictures and other things litrary. That's not the DC I grew up in! That isn't even Barstow!
Is there room for both rhetoric and grammar in a single class period? (And if you’ve never taught, don’t try to answer that.)
I find it laugh-out-loud hilarious that this question was both rhetorical and grammatical.
Yeah, I'm weird that way.