Reply to HB Woodlawn HS questions

Forum Index » VA Public Schools other than FCPS

Reply to "HB Woodlawn HS questions "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How do you combine an AP class and a non-AP class.  Can someone explain how that works.[/quote]

For one of the AP/regular English classes... You teach towards the bottom. Then, for example, you give an assignment, for which you can read literally a choice of comic book, a 2nd grade reading level book, a middle grade book, or one or two actual books. I'm not sure of the exact number for each assignment but I know for sure there were at least the comic book, 2nd grade, middle grade, and one famous regular book. It's sad. And the fact that everyone probably gets graded the exact same is unfair and embarrassing. Oh yeah, there was also a choice to watch a movie instead.

Not an exaggeration. And don't complain if your kid does poorly on the AP test because I don't think anyone (parent or kid) officially complains at the beginning of school or during the year, according to our kids. (They could be doing the "privacy" nonsense and trying to pretend that your kid is the only one complaining, where parents clam up because of shame. This happened pre-Covid at an APS elementary school and they got away with it for several years before more than a few parents started meeting at school events and comparing notes. Its harder for them to get away with it now.)[/quote]

I think I know which class you’re talking about. It was very disappointing. They mostly watched films instead of reading. I chalked it up to a bad teacher— which we’ve had from time to time over the years in public schools. HB isn’t immune to the usual public school problems.[/quote]

Which grade was this?  Offering a 2nd grade book vs. a regular book for that level is horrifying, and then everyone gets graded the same, as if it was the same difficulty? Is this how they “hide” the non-achievements of kids who have certain reasons (like medical) or is this done to hide language inadequacies?  Or WHY?!  Why would a school do this in English AP in HS?  Or did I misunderstand the PP?[/quote]

You misunderstood. I have no idea if there is a different grade book. Where did you get that from? And if there is, why is that so horrifying when there are two different classes. What difference would it make?

I don’t see how this co teaching hides anything. Can you explain that? It’s a matter of resources. The school isn’t big enough to offer separate classes so they have to teach them together.

Weird that some people think this is some big conspiracy. But that’s par for the course!!! It’s definitely not an advantage but if you don’t like it don’t go to HB [/quote]

Horrifying - or in other words, inexplicable and inexcusable; that a second grader book would be read in MS or HS - the PP explicitly mentioned “a comic book, a 2nd grader book and a regular book” - that’s why I asked which grade it was.  Co-teaching the class (and they also mentioned teaching to the lowest denominator), especially allowing such vastly different materials for the same credit, hides the underachievement within their statistics and test scores, and it hides how kids do overall in the class, unless they break it down further, which APS usually does not do.  
I’m not that PP and neither are you, so it would only be helpful if they clarified.[/quote]

Yes comics and children's books are types of literature. There are college classes on children's literature.

How does teaching two classes in the same room hide the underachievement exactly? The kids are enrolled in two separate classes. [/quote]

The way it would hide the underachievement is the teacher is forced to teach to the lowest common denominator at least some of the time and likely spend more time with the non-AP students, which is what any teacher has to do in that situation in any classroom at any grade level.  Therefore the kids enrolled in the AP class are a) getting lower level instruction and work than what should be provided in an AP class and b) probably getting a good grade for doing said lower level work, which others on this thread have said leads to lower AP scores.

This is not even complicated.  It's baffling people are not getting it.[/quote]

Except there an AP exam at the end of the course, so any underachievement would be obvious via AP scores. Also kids submit their AP scores to colleges for admissions purposes. So not having the same opportunity of getting higher AP scores to submit to colleges is a significant downside for HB.

[/quote]

It is not a requirement to submit AP scores to colleges.  It's not even really an expectation.  Lots of kids don't report them.  I bet the kids from HB sure as hell don't![/quote]

[b]Right but high AP scores can help a college applicant.[/b] An HB student would not have high scores to submit while students at other schools would. I don't see how that's an advantage for HB. [/quote]

I think this is what it boils down to.  In the current test optional environment, which is shifting slightly, plenty of kids are not submitting scores for anything (SAT, ACT, AP exams) and their transcript shows a bunch of APs with A grades.  And yes, they're getting into top colleges doing this.  (Yes, this is starting to change but still plenty of test optional schools left.)

In an environment where everyone is required to submit test scores, sure high AP scores would level the playing field.  I don't think that's the environment we're currently in.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics