Reply to 2023-24 Course catalog

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Higher GPA with AP Precalc (+1) vs Honors Precalc (+0.5)?[/quote]
Possibly. The current approach also gets around the optical problem of assigning AP Precalculus the +1 AP course bump when the more rigorous honors Precalc Trig only gets a + 0.5 bump. The GPA bump for APs was not designed to handle an AP course that is not the most rigorous course in the main HS sequence. However, there are simpler ways around this problem. FCPS could just have acknowledged that AP Precalculus was different from other APs and was not recognized as a college level course by some colleges; as such, split the difference and award AP Precalculus a +0.5 bump.  Or, give honors Precalc Trig a +1 bump. Either of those would have 1) saved the contortions of putting honors kids in a course that does not fit them and then retro-fitting the course to try to meet their needs and 2) allowed AP Precalculus to be better targeted to 9th grade Algebra 1 students, giving them greater opportunities and helping bring down achievement gap.

There's another possible motivation for the change too. Although VMPI imploded over its advocacy for heterogenous classes, support for heterogenous classes remains strong amongst the regional districts. It would be difficult to get rid of honors Precalc Trig outright. However, the introduction of AP Precalculus shakes things up and provides the opportunity to get rid of the course with little fanfare. Now a greater number of students are all housed in AP Precalculus -- the former honors Precalc Trig kids and potentially some of the non-honors Precalc Trig kids.  While there will be different sections for now, might districts begin to blur these section distinctions down the road if they want more heterogenous classes?

On balance, you are likely right. This change may well have been driven by the GPA bump. However, even so, realize that once honors PreCalc Trig is gone, it is very unlikely to ever return. Kids have given up a dedicated honors course that had a clearly defined and public course description (where any watering down would be visible year to year) and now have an AP Precalculus course with a (so far) sparsely defined honors section whose syllabus/content may differ at each school which makes it easier to change/water down content. That is unfortunate in the current environment.[/quote]

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