Reply to What is the point of AAP Center in middle school?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid can attend the AAP Center middle school or the base middle school that offers local level IV instruction and groups AAP kids together in Honors classes. I confirmed with both the AAP center middle school and the base middle school and my kid's elementary school that that Honors curriculum is identical to the AAP curriculum. Again, there is no difference in the program of instruction beyond that the middle school report card from the Center school will show "AAP" and the base middle school will show "Honors." This has been confirmed by the administration at all three schools. So what is the point of having an AAP Center? I assume it's because some middle schools don't have the local level IV instruction?[/quote]
The point for you and your kid is that the AAP center will likely offer a stronger peer group. And if a teacher has a stronger peer group in a particular classroom, it is possible that they may decide to challenge the students a bit more which would obviously translate to them learning more.

Specific example: I believe Longfellow has (or had?) a class called GPS (geometry problem solving) that is much more challenging than a normal honors geometry class. This class tends to attract many of the top math students, i.e the ones who are very good at math contests and go on to TJ and excel there. There were rumors that in GPS the kids would occasionally be given challenge problems similar to ones found in olympiads (think USAJMO). Not sure if they were actually graded on these problems, but in any case if they had a chance to work on such things, there's no doubt that they benefited greatly. Note: this is admittedly an extreme example, but it highlights the 'school within a school' principle where the class may look to be the same on the surface, but it can go much deeper, depending on the peer group.[/quote]

Thanks for this. At our base middle school, kids coming from full-time AAP in elementary are grouped together in Honors classes that are given the local Level IV instruction. So the peer group is the same as the one that would be found at the AAP Center. Perhaps this isn't done at other base middle schools and is an anomaly at ours.[/quote]

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