Why do kids in "regular" courses get A's?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Once again, whether or not a college gives credit for AP exams is not the point. An AP class is taught at the college level so it's above and beyond the standard "college track" high school course.

I think most people here could not care less whether Dartmouth gives credits for AP exams. It wasn't the question that OP asked.

[Anonymous]

OP, grades apply to the classes in question. If I'm in remedial reading and you're in AP English, and we both get As, that's because I mastered all the material presented in remedial reading as assigned and you mastered all the material presented in AP English as assigned.

Is there a qualitative difference in what that material is? Yes, of course. Do colleges notice the difference between remedial reading and AP English on a transcript? Yes, but not because of the letter grade that a student received in those courses.

As for "only teaching 50-60% of the material" I think that that makes sense. If a class needs 100% of the time to master 50% of the material, I would rather them spend the time they need for mastery rather than rush through to the "finish line" and have many students not understand the material. That kind of thing is no better than social promotion in my opinion and creates a climate where students who don't learn at the "pace" set for the classroom that is not responsive to the class's needs will hate learning in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, grades apply to the classes in question. If I'm in remedial reading and you're in AP English, and we both get As, that's because I mastered all the material presented in remedial reading as assigned and you mastered all the material presented in AP English as assigned.

Is there a qualitative difference in what that material is? Yes, of course. Do colleges notice the difference between remedial reading and AP English on a transcript? Yes, but not because of the letter grade that a student received in those courses.

As for "only teaching 50-60% of the material" I think that that makes sense. If a class needs 100% of the time to master 50% of the material, I would rather them spend the time they need for mastery rather than rush through to the "finish line" and have many students not understand the material. That kind of thing is no better than social promotion in my opinion and creates a climate where students who don't learn at the "pace" set for the classroom that is not responsive to the class's needs will hate learning in the future.

Well said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think OP is upset because her AP/Honors kid got a B in the AP class and her kid's friend, in normal class, got an A and now she can't brag as much because it'll sound trite.

Yup.

Nope. More like the parents of complete idiot seniors are all talking about their Eddies and Suzies going away to college and I know they're all going to fail out. They're being conned by the high school and colleges are all too eager to take advantage of their naivety.

Wow. What school do your children attend with Eddie and Suzie? I would be shocked (in fact, I think I'd move immediately) if all the seniors in my DC's HS failed out of college.

What's wrong with you for choosing such an awful HS?

BTW, it's correctly spelled naiveté (lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment). But, unlike yourself, there is no "y."

[Anonymous]

OP is right. All grades are inflated but at least honors and AP courses are actually teaching material. Normal track courses are a joke and working and middle class parents don't understand the grades from those courses are MEANINGLESS

These kids have decent GPAs and then bomb the ACT/SAT. But the parents use the school GPA to ignore the low ACT/SAT, and send their kids off to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP is right. All grades are inflated but at least honors and AP courses are actually teaching material. Normal track courses are a joke and working and middle class parents don't understand the grades from those courses are MEANINGLESS

These kids have decent GPAs and then bomb the ACT/SAT. But the parents use the school GPA to ignore the low ACT/SAT, and send their kids off to college.

That may be true of DCPS (the home of low expectations) but it is not universally true. They have schools in states like Massachusetts and New York where a diploma is expected to mean something, regardless of the honorifics attached to any specific course.

[Anonymous]

Gpa is a much better predictor of college success than the sat.
www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/21/a-telling-study-about-act-sat-scores/
This is a wapo article but it cites the study.

[Anonymous]

The WaPo stopped being a seriously respectable publication quite a long time ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:



OP, you need to relax. You seem wound extremely tight. Why do you care? I grew up in a crappy school system where we barely had honors/AP, was a terrible high school student but excellent writer and test-taker, made it in to Big State U (miraculously, if you ask my parents) and graduated magna cum laude. I didn't feel unprepared. Maybe because I was "only" at Big State U and not an Ivy. But seriously. Your snowflake will be OK, honors/AP or the horror of "regular" curriculum. And if you live anywhere in MoCo or Northern VA, your regular kid already has a leg up on kids from where I come from. Funny, all the Ffx Co kids at my college were cheating off me in class.

1. You grew up in a different generation. It is so much more stratified these days. Normal courses used to be challenging — they're all a joke now.

2. Because over 40% of kids are failing out of university and I guarantee if you isolated kids who didn't take Honors-Advanced-AP courses it's more like 80%. That's a hell of a lot of money blown because gullible parents assumed their A-B-C idiot was ready for college. And obviously exploitative colleges admit everyone with a pulse who has access to grants and loans.

Now no kids can get less than 50% grade unless they don't show up, Fs don't exist anymore in DCPS or other major school districts. That is one reason folks go crazy when they see PARCC or SOL data, they don't have a clue how their kids are performing as most kids get A and Bs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, yours is hands down the stupidest post I have ever seen on DCUM, which really is saying something. You should get a certificate.

+1000000 there are not enough zeros for this

Just came here to pile on.

[Anonymous]

It's a teacher scheme - they inflate all the courses so parents and kids stay off their back. Anyone with a pulse can get a B in a normal track course. Gullible parents ignore the low ACT/SAT score and assume their normal kid is smart because they have all A's and B's (!!) and let them take out tens of thousands in loans. After 3 4 5 6 years of churning 100- and 200-level college courses they either fail out or max out the loans and return to the parents' couch. Rinse repeat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, yours is hands down the stupidest post I have ever seen on DCUM, which really is saying something. You should get a certificate.

Agreed.

Hey OP just in case because I'm sure you are wondering... a serving of asparagus is six whole spears.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a teacher scheme - they inflate all the courses so parents and kids stay off their back. Anyone with a pulse can get a B in a normal track course. Gullible parents ignore the low ACT/SAT score and assume their normal kid is smart because they have all A's and B's (!!) and let them take out tens of thousands in loans. After 3 4 5 6 years of churning 100- and 200-level college courses they either fail out or max out the loans and return to the parents' couch. Rinse repeat.

So bitter and angry. What's your medication? Lithium? Thorazine?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hear me out. Several teachers have told me these kids are only taught 50-60% of the material compared to the equivalent Honors-Advanced-AP course. Obviously Honors-Advanced-AP courses are weighed, but a "regular" course kid can get a report card full of A's and B's. Gullible parents assume their kid is bright, but the kid is shaping up to be years behind their peers in the Honors-Advanced-AP courses.

Remember when Honors-Advanced-AP courses were called "COLLEGE TRACK"?

Going further, this seems like a long-con that tricks naive parents into sending their kids away to college, when they're severely unprepared. Seems an easy way of waking both kids and parents up would be to only give these kids B's, at best.

. Eons ago when I was in high school, we didn't have something called "college track." I was in mostly Advanced classes. Some of those were AP. I took Honors Math. There were also Standard classes, and Basic classes. You could get As, Bs, Cs etc in all of them, but there was a weighting for the harder classes that would help with your class rank. So you had to take all Advanced classes to be in the top 10 etc.

[Anonymous]

*after bombing ACT/SAT*

"My baby just doesn't test well... but I know she's real smart because she has a 3.79 GPA!"