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.