As AP Expands, Studies Disagree on Its Value
Some Parents and Teens, Feeling Pressure to Choose Difficult Courses, Look for Middle Ground
By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Angie Palma, a student at West Potomac High School, was stunned to discover last spring that the honors U.S. history course she hoped to take her junior year would no longer be offered.
For many years, honors courses have been an attractive compromise for American high-schoolers. They have sampled the choices like Goldilocks: Regular courses? Too easy. Advanced Placement courses? Too hard. But honors courses were just right.
Of course, that was before Advanced Placement and the smaller-but-similar college-level International Baccalaureate began a period of rapid growth that changed school curriculums across the country. More than a million high school students took AP tests in May, double the number who took them 10 years ago. And the Bush administration has proposed funds for training 70,000 new AP science and math teachers.
Now, a series of competing, sometimes contradictory studies have begun to look at the effectiveness of AP and IB in meeting their central purpose -- preparing students such as Palma for college. Some parents and students are questioning whether the college-level courses are placing too much strain on children and supplanting useful honors courses. And the College Board, which sponsors the AP program, has begun to ask schools to examine the content of their AP courses to make sure they meet the program's standards.
Palma is taking AP psychology but decided on the regular history course, calling the AP class "beyond my capabilities." Choices such as hers are part of a debate over AP that shows no signs of abating as the program undergoes growing pains
continue reading here.
Too Inconvenient And Too CostlyPrivate schools have been complaining about the growing influence of Advanced Placement and its effect on their programs. Joan Goodman, a school administrator and AP coordinator at The New School of Northern Virginia, was asked to give her opinion on the new AP course audit
By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Angie Palma, a student at West Potomac High School, was stunned to discover last spring that the honors U.S. history course she hoped to take her junior year would no longer be offered.
For many years, honors courses have been an attractive compromise for American high-schoolers. They have sampled the choices like Goldilocks: Regular courses? Too easy. Advanced Placement courses? Too hard. But honors courses were just right.
Of course, that was before Advanced Placement and the smaller-but-similar college-level International Baccalaureate began a period of rapid growth that changed school curriculums across the country. More than a million high school students took AP tests in May, double the number who took them 10 years ago. And the Bush administration has proposed funds for training 70,000 new AP science and math teachers.
Now, a series of competing, sometimes contradictory studies have begun to look at the effectiveness of AP and IB in meeting their central purpose -- preparing students such as Palma for college. Some parents and students are questioning whether the college-level courses are placing too much strain on children and supplanting useful honors courses. And the College Board, which sponsors the AP program, has begun to ask schools to examine the content of their AP courses to make sure they meet the program's standards.
Palma is taking AP psychology but decided on the regular history course, calling the AP class "beyond my capabilities." Choices such as hers are part of a debate over AP that shows no signs of abating as the program undergoes growing pains
continue reading here.
Too Inconvenient And Too CostlyPrivate schools have been complaining about the growing influence of Advanced Placement and its effect on their programs. Joan Goodman, a school administrator and AP coordinator at The New School of Northern Virginia, was asked to give her opinion on the new AP course audit
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