Reply to How is the elimination of APs going for your DC

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]AP classes are the equivalent of an online course from University of Phoenix.[/quote]

The anti-AP crowd is the weirdest group of people I’ve seen on DCUM since the virulent anti-redshirters.[/quote]

Not at all.  People are just pointing out that AP is a high school level class, focused on test prep, that is sold by a for profit company that controls the public high school curriculum.[/quote]

And their imperviousness to the more detailed counterpoints that there is no such thing as “AP is a high school level class, focused on test prep” because the curriculum is more open and teacher-dependent than that, and that the units of what is to be learned track closely to college intro classes in many cases, is what makes them exactly like the weird anti-redshirters.[/quote]

Exactly. I personally took AP courses at an elite private school that later dropped them. I know, because I was there, that elite private schools are perfectly capable of offering AP courses that cover the AP curriculum, without being focused on test prep, while also incorporating original research, extensive writing, and robust class discussion.

This insistence that my same teachers, who are still teaching the same subjects at the same school, suddenly became incapable of doing something they had been doing successfully for decades, strikes me as detached from reality. Was there a sudden epidemic of incompetence among veteran teachers at elite private schools? More likely that the students weaker today than in my day, or the younger teachers are less skilled.

And more likely than any of that, in my opinion, is that elite private schools realized it would be easier to get athletes and donor-class/celebrity kids into top schools if the high school didn’t offer APs. Have a top academic student? Tell the college they took your most rigorous courses. Have a hooked kid who did not take your most rigorous courses? Say, “oh, he didn’t take APs because we don’t offer APs.” With the development office and/or coach at the table, no one will be interested in hearing the details of your school’s idiosyncratic curriculum in order to understand that the child actually took a less challenging course load. [/quote]

You make too much sense. 
[/quote]

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