which Big3 schools actually dropped APs this year as planned?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why they still have APs years (about 5 to be exact) after they made such a big fuss about eliminating them due to their superior non-AP teaching and class offerings? If that were the case they should have been gone by the following year.

STA still has AP math, science, and foreign language. It looks like they only eliminated history and English APs. They are offered as the highest level taught in a given subject, mostly junior and senior year.

So the rest of the 8 schools that agreed to this are eliminating them but STA is keeping most of the classes? To be honest, that is really crappy of them to not follow through on their agreement with the other 7 schools.

What does it matter? It does not affect other schools whether St. Albans keeps them or not.
St. Albans is free to do what is best for St. Albans students

Come on, that is a fundamentally crappy attitude when these school purposefully did this as a contortion of 8 schools.
There was reason they did it as a united front of 8 schools.
It mostly sucks for NCS students who are often compared to STA students.

[Anonymous]

sorry to be dense but can someone remind me why they decided to do this in the first place? Wasn't it somewhat controversial?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:sorry to be dense but can someone remind me why they decided to do this in the first place? Wasn't it somewhat controversial?

The claims were : students may pass up other courses to get the college credits from AP courses, and that moving away from the courses would allow them to offer a wider variety of courses that were equally rigorous and enriching.

However, I’ve yet to hear what rigorous courses are replacing the APs at all these schools. More I suspect that said course will offer depth in a teachers personal area of curiosity and expertise and less the students interest. Especially when you consider these are small schools so it’s not like the teachers are about to create a huge variety of new classes from scratch and then be the only ones that can teach them every year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:sorry to be dense but can someone remind me why they decided to do this in the first place? Wasn't it somewhat controversial?

The claims were : students may pass up other courses to get the college credits from AP courses, and that moving away from the courses would allow them to offer a wider variety of courses that were equally rigorous and enriching.

However, I’ve yet to hear what rigorous courses are replacing the APs at all these schools. More I suspect that said course will offer depth in a teachers personal area of curiosity and expertise and less the students interest. Especially when you consider these are small schools so it’s not like the teachers are about to create a huge variety of new classes from scratch and then be the only ones that can teach them every year.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why they still have APs years (about 5 to be exact) after they made such a big fuss about eliminating them due to their superior non-AP teaching and class offerings? If that were the case they should have been gone by the following year.

STA still has AP math, science, and foreign language. It looks like they only eliminated history and English APs. They are offered as the highest level taught in a given subject, mostly junior and senior year.

So the rest of the 8 schools that agreed to this are eliminating them but STA is keeping most of the classes? To be honest, that is really crappy of them to not follow through on their agreement with the other 7 schools.

What does it matter? It does not affect other schools whether St. Albans keeps them or not.
St. Albans is free to do what is best for St. Albans students

Classic STA response to their bad behavior. Very Typical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:sorry to be dense but can someone remind me why they decided to do this in the first place? Wasn't it somewhat controversial?

The claims were : students may pass up other courses to get the college credits from AP courses, and that moving away from the courses would allow them to offer a wider variety of courses that were equally rigorous and enriching.

However, I’ve yet to hear what rigorous courses are replacing the APs at all these schools. More I suspect that said course will offer depth in a teachers personal area of curiosity and expertise and less the students interest. Especially when you consider these are small schools so it’s not like the teachers are about to create a huge variety of new classes from scratch and then be the only ones that can teach them every year.

Most schools post their catalogs online. Gds designates their new AP replacements with "UL" and you can see them in every department. But of course they reflect what teachers want to teach/school priorities rather than student interests. As a group, students have a variety of interests and change every year. No school builds its curriculum that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:sorry to be dense but can someone remind me why they decided to do this in the first place? Wasn't it somewhat controversial?

The claims were : students may pass up other courses to get the college credits from AP courses, and that moving away from the courses would allow them to offer a wider variety of courses that were equally rigorous and enriching.

However, I’ve yet to hear what rigorous courses are replacing the APs at all these schools. More I suspect that said course will offer depth in a teachers personal area of curiosity and expertise and less the students interest. Especially when you consider these are small schools so it’s not like the teachers are about to create a huge variety of new classes from scratch and then be the only ones that can teach them every year.

Most schools post their catalogs online. Gds designates their new AP replacements with "UL" and you can see them in every department. But of course they reflect what teachers want to teach/school priorities rather than student interests. As a group, students have a variety of interests and change every year. No school builds its curriculum that way.

In my experience with AP courses (History and Geography), they have NOTHING to do with meeting a variety of interests. They are a fixed set of facts that students learn best with flash cards, believe it or not, with a mild layer of organization and interpretation thrown in on top. It's just water skiing across the top of a subject to see how much sticks to the student. The opportunities for depth or reflection are extremely limited. You always have to keep up to the schedule and ram the next unit through.

I don't teach APs now, and I'm glad. They are a means to get a test score, not kindle a student's passion for the subject.

[Anonymous]

Wokies don’t like AP classes and increasingly don’t want grade transcripts. Jokers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wokies don’t like AP classes and increasingly don’t want grade transcripts. Jokers.

Morons latch on to whatever term Fox News puts in front of them and spout gibberish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:so bizarre that these are all such small schools and each charges such exorbitant tuition so they can allegedly offer such personal service to rich families yet parents have to ask basic questions about the schools on an anonymous public forum rather than go directly to the schools themselves. i just don't get it. what are you all paying for?

They are asking here because their kids don’t go there yet. And they don’t want to waste an admins time or their own reaching out while they narrow down the rest. And for the millionth time not everyone at a private is wealthy.

[Anonymous]

My DD is at NCS. I know they have AP Calculus because my DD wanted to enroll and they wouldn’t let her. They definitely have AP language, but they wouldn’t let my daughter enroll in that either. They have AP Biology, but my daughter was in the regular biology class. Honestly, I have only recently figured out that my DD is probably screwed in the college process because her classmates are in these AP classes but my DD isn’t. I heard they were being eliminated, but the school is no longer saying that to parents. They definitely gatekeep these classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD is at NCS. I know they have AP Calculus because my DD wanted to enroll and they wouldn’t let her. They definitely have AP language, but they wouldn’t let my daughter enroll in that either. They have AP Biology, but my daughter was in the regular biology class. Honestly, I have only recently figured out that my DD is probably screwed in the college process because her classmates are in these AP classes but my DD isn’t. I heard they were being eliminated, but the school is no longer saying that to parents. They definitely gatekeep these classes.

what math was your daughter in last year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:sorry to be dense but can someone remind me why they decided to do this in the first place? Wasn't it somewhat controversial?

The claims were : students may pass up other courses to get the college credits from AP courses, and that moving away from the courses would allow them to offer a wider variety of courses that were equally rigorous and enriching.

However, I’ve yet to hear what rigorous courses are replacing the APs at all these schools. More I suspect that said course will offer depth in a teachers personal area of curiosity and expertise and less the students interest. Especially when you consider these are small schools so it’s not like the teachers are about to create a huge variety of new classes from scratch and then be the only ones that can teach them every year.[/quote

A class doesn't need to follow the strict AP to be as rigorous (or more) than an AP course. Our child got 5's on AP Lit and APUSH from their Big 3 regular 11th grade English/History course that has NO levels at all (there's no honors, etc. - everyone takes the same class). No tutor involved. A small amount of feedback from teachers on what the exam will look like and whether there was anything the teacher hadn't covered yet. It was not a heavy lift for our student - they had been taught at the high level AP required but with a curriculum and depth the teacher/school chose,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:sorry to be dense but can someone remind me why they decided to do this in the first place? Wasn't it somewhat controversial?

The claims were : students may pass up other courses to get the college credits from AP courses, and that moving away from the courses would allow them to offer a wider variety of courses that were equally rigorous and enriching.

However, I’ve yet to hear what rigorous courses are replacing the APs at all these schools. More I suspect that said course will offer depth in a teachers personal area of curiosity and expertise and less the students interest. Especially when you consider these are small schools so it’s not like the teachers are about to create a huge variety of new classes from scratch and then be the only ones that can teach them every year.

A class doesn't need to follow the strict AP to be as rigorous (or more) than an AP course. Our child got 5's on AP Lit and APUSH from their Big 3 regular 11th grade English and US History courses...and our school has NO differentiated levels for those courses (there's no honors, etc. - everyone takes the same class). There was no tutor involved and not a lot of extra work. Teachers gave a small amount of feedback in the Spring on what the exam will look like and whether there was anything the teacher hadn't covered yet. It was not a heavy lift for our student - they had been taught at the high level AP required but with a curriculum and depth the teacher/school chose for the course. There are so many skeptics on the decreasing quality. The Blair Magnet science courses aren't all labeled AP - and those kids also get 5's on the AP subject exams. In both cases, these are smart kids with great teachers....there's no need to follow the rote AP formula. They get a better course AND get the "5" test score.

[Anonymous]

There is no “rote AP formula,” PP.