Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone posted this on another thread about AP precalc: https://saratogafalcon.org/content/precalculus-honors-classes-should-not-transform-curriculum-to-conform-to-ap-precalculus/

It’s not MCPS, but it makes some important points about the potential lack of rigor in the AP course compared with the base honors course. The AP course is intended to expand access to AP math for those who otherwise would not get there. I’m not sure why anyone whose child did honors algebra 2 successfully would take it. The MCPS honors class should be more rigorous.

Well I'll tell you why. It's because at my kid's school, there were only 2 options. Regular precalculus or AP precalculus.

DP This is the aspect that doesn't make sense. AP precalculus credits are of no use to kids who will go on to take AP calculus and/or attend colleges that don't recognize precalculus as college-level content and therefore won't accept the AP credit. AP precalculus does make sense for kids who will not take calculus in high school and/or will attend community college or a four-year college that will accept AP precalculus credits or at least allow students to place out of college math requirements using the credit. Districts should offer AP precalculus instead of regular precalculus and offer honors precalculus for kids who will take calculus in high school; this approach would be consistent with the intent of the AP precalculus course designers who have said that they expect most kids taking AP precalculus will be seniors.

+1

AP precalc should replace regular, not honors, precalc. Why MCPS only offers regular and AP?

Districts are equity-focused and are trying to boost participation in AP/IB/DE courses for underrepresented students. AP Precalculus was designed to offer STEM AP credits to students who might not otherwise receive them and is thus custom-designed to help districts advance their equity goals. And yet, districts are not taking advantage of this opportunity and are placing honors students in AP Precalculus instead. Why?

1) Do they fear undermining efforts to steer non-honors students away from the calculus pathway? 2) Are they concerned that non-honors math courses are not preparing students enough to succeed in AP Precalculus & that broader enrollment might negatively impact average district AP scores? (If so, then they need to boost rigor in earlier non-honors math courses.) 3) Are they overlooking an equity-enhancing opportunity so that they can help their high-performing students engage in a GPA arms race with their DMV peers? (If so, they could just give the same GPA boost to honors precalculus.) 4) Do they like the applied focus and modeling emphasis of AP Precalculus and see this as an opportunity to get rid of more traditionally structured courses like honors precalculus? Some combination of these?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone posted this on another thread about AP precalc: https://saratogafalcon.org/content/precalculus-honors-classes-should-not-transform-curriculum-to-conform-to-ap-precalculus/

It’s not MCPS, but it makes some important points about the potential lack of rigor in the AP course compared with the base honors course. The AP course is intended to expand access to AP math for those who otherwise would not get there. I’m not sure why anyone whose child did honors algebra 2 successfully would take it. The MCPS honors class should be more rigorous.

Well I'll tell you why. It's because at my kid's school, there were only 2 options. Regular precalculus or AP precalculus.

DP This is the aspect that doesn't make sense. AP precalculus credits are of no use to kids who will go on to take AP calculus and/or attend colleges that don't recognize precalculus as college-level content and therefore won't accept the AP credit. AP precalculus does make sense for kids who will not take calculus in high school and/or will attend community college or a four-year college that will accept AP precalculus credits or at least allow students to place out of college math requirements using the credit. Districts should offer AP precalculus instead of regular precalculus and offer honors precalculus for kids who will take calculus in high school; this approach would be consistent with the intent of the AP precalculus course designers who have said that they expect most kids taking AP precalculus will be seniors.

+1

AP precalc should replace regular, not honors, precalc. Why MCPS only offers regular and AP?

Oops sorry - what MCPS offers regular and AP and not honors?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone posted this on another thread about AP precalc: https://saratogafalcon.org/content/precalculus-honors-classes-should-not-transform-curriculum-to-conform-to-ap-precalculus/

It’s not MCPS, but it makes some important points about the potential lack of rigor in the AP course compared with the base honors course. The AP course is intended to expand access to AP math for those who otherwise would not get there. I’m not sure why anyone whose child did honors algebra 2 successfully would take it. The MCPS honors class should be more rigorous.

Well I'll tell you why. It's because at my kid's school, there were only 2 options. Regular precalculus or AP precalculus.

DP This is the aspect that doesn't make sense. AP precalculus credits are of no use to kids who will go on to take AP calculus and/or attend colleges that don't recognize precalculus as college-level content and therefore won't accept the AP credit. AP precalculus does make sense for kids who will not take calculus in high school and/or will attend community college or a four-year college that will accept AP precalculus credits or at least allow students to place out of college math requirements using the credit. Districts should offer AP precalculus instead of regular precalculus and offer honors precalculus for kids who will take calculus in high school; this approach would be consistent with the intent of the AP precalculus course designers who have said that they expect most kids taking AP precalculus will be seniors.

+1

AP precalc should replace regular, not honors, precalc. Why MCPS only offers regular and AP?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone posted this on another thread about AP precalc: https://saratogafalcon.org/content/precalculus-honors-classes-should-not-transform-curriculum-to-conform-to-ap-precalculus/

It’s not MCPS, but it makes some important points about the potential lack of rigor in the AP course compared with the base honors course. The AP course is intended to expand access to AP math for those who otherwise would not get there. I’m not sure why anyone whose child did honors algebra 2 successfully would take it. The MCPS honors class should be more rigorous.

Well I'll tell you why. It's because at my kid's school, there were only 2 options. Regular precalculus or AP precalculus.

DP This is the aspect that doesn't make sense. AP precalculus credits are of no use to kids who will go on to take AP calculus and/or attend colleges that don't recognize precalculus as college-level content and therefore won't accept the AP credit. AP precalculus does make sense for kids who will not take calculus in high school and/or will attend community college or a four-year college that will accept AP precalculus credits or at least allow students to place out of college math requirements using the credit. Districts should offer AP precalculus instead of regular precalculus and offer honors precalculus for kids who will take calculus in high school; this approach would be consistent with the intent of the AP precalculus course designers who have said that they expect most kids taking AP precalculus will be seniors.

In our situation, our kid signed up for Honors PreCal but the school switched it to AP over the summer. Not much that we could do about it. We could really care less about the exam but getting that extra bump on the GPA is a nice benefit. Will take AP Calc or AP Stat as a Junior if she doesn't go the IB Diploma route.

Anonymous wrote:
Con: This is a new AP exam, so college admissions officers might not be comfortable with it yet, and teachers might not know how to teach it well. When teachers are not trained well in teaching AP courses, students don't fare as well on the exam.

Pro: the College Board is a respected entity with a scoring system that allows the comparison of students nationwide. An AP class will usually weigh more seriously than an Honors class from Podunk high school. I think they'll just count it as just another of the "easy" APs: like AP Psychology, AP Human Geo, things like that.

Conclusion: if your kid is on track to do AP Calc BC or beyond, and there's a chance they'll have a dozen APs by the end of 12th grade... I don't think AP Pre-calc is necessary. But if you want the GPA boost, sure. If your kid won't have that many APs, I think it's a question of weighing the risk of having an inexperienced teacher compared to the GPA boost.

Also.
There seems to be at an anti-AP-precalc troll on this thread.

Their kid is at one of the lesser schools that don't offer it, so they're bitter.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wootton offers it but…what is the point of taking it? Once your kid takes AP calculus that’s the one that will count toward college credits. What’s the point of AP precalculus?

Its just to get a bump in the GPA

Honors get same bump in MCPS.

True but most colleges disregard honors classes when they recompute GPA.