Reply to 2017 "Most Challenging" High Schools List (Wash Post/Jay Mathews) is out

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Reply to "2017 "Most Challenging" High Schools List (Wash Post/Jay Mathews) is out"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Latin had a higher AP percentage in 2013 because they offered fewer APs then.    Great AP classes (and exam pass rates) develop over time-- as certain teachers get experience in "teaching to the test" for that particular AP subject matter.  Latin hasn't been teaching most AP subjects long enough to have developed that type of AP "machine" even if that was an academic goal of the school-- which it really isn't.  For those AP classes which Latin has been teaching  for a long time, e.g. AP Latin-- they get all 4's and 5's.[/quote]

Give me a break. They don't all get 4s and 5s.

Hundreds of thousands of homeschooled kids take AP tests every year in this country, with a great many earning high scores. Their families buy readily available prep materials, check them out for free at public libraries, or find them on-line (e.g. on Khan Academy).  If the academic goal of the school is teaching kids to a strong classics-based humanities curriculum, ensuring that most of the kids earn decent scores on AP exams just isn't a high bar to clear in view of the school's demographics and the 5th grade entry system.  At Wilson, Walls, BASIS and countless suburban schools in this Metro area, a good third of the kids breeze through half a dozen or more AP exams with high scores, let alone 1 with a passing score.

This result tells me that Latin needs to rethink its model, adding far more serious differentiation younger. However you slide it 18.8% on Jay Matthew's site is a disgrace for such a program.  Period. [/quote]

I'm also really surprised by the low pass rate. This means that out of a class of 100 kids (Latin is about that size, right?) fewer than 20 kids passed at least one AP exam? I went to the Latin website to look at the curriculum, but I didn't see anything concrete, just a blurb about the curriculum teaching the wisdom of the ancients. Now the website seems to have crashed and I can't poke around anymore. Is there anywhere for a prospective family to see the sequence of middle school and then high school courses? And what math curriculum do they use? [/quote]

In 2016 Latin had 67 seniors. In 2017 they have 89.

I've been unable to find their course catalog online either.

[/quote]

So 12 kids?  Wow. [/quote]

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