NYT examines how Advanced Placement classes may take place of real learning.

Run time: 04:47 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz98Kf8fd7Y   Posted on YouTube: January 25, 2010 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 02, 2010 By DU Member: madfloridian Views on DU: 1762

 
From the Schools Matter blog..some comments and a video from the NYT website.

New Documentary, Race to Nowhere, Examines AP Testing Abuse



Here is more from the New York Times article called The Advanced Placement Juggernaut.

The Advanced Placement Juggernaut



Several commentators give their views at the site.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that teaching to the test is hurting students. But my experience with the AP classes was the exact opposite of this.

In fact, I feel like I learned a lot more in those classes than I learned in many of the equivalent classes I took in college. Think about it this way: An AP class might have 30 students who meet every single school day for a year. The undergraduate 101 class on the same topic (say, Calculus) might have 300 students who meet twice a week for 12 weeks. Who do you really think retains more?

And how do you "cram" for AP Calculus, Biology, or English Composition. How is that different from what 90% of college students do the night before the final?

However it is "cramming". And the point is that it appears to be becoming more readily available to some who are not ready for that learning.

I have known of great AP classes, but there is a downside as there is to all testing centered curriculum.

Learning stuff to do well on a test is not whole learning.

to technical schools, colleges and universities early. I also had a host of AP classes and received college credit but honestly, I think I missed out on higher quality opportunities at the university level. I get what you are saying about college class sizes and time, I think those are most excellent points, but maybe it depends more upon the quality of the high school and college in question.

I say graduate kids early and get them off to college while their brains are functioning at peak levels so no time is wasted. I also think money saved on college courses needs to be an oxymoron of a sort, with investments in every citizen's education at public technical schools, colleges and universities paid for in full by taxes. The return on the investment is far greater than many others and we won't have to strap people with debt at a very poor time.

I'm sure that good AP courses are more effective than many bad college intro courses. But even at my state university calculus classes met 4 times a week and were limited in size to 24-30 students. What you describe is much more likely in intro science courses, and even then in physics there's be the big lecture (which modern physics education pedagogy has transformed into an interactive experience at every school that pays any attention at all to teaching effectiveness) twice a week and small problem-solving sessions twice a week, plus labs.

My suspicion is that the teachers of your AP courses would also have taught just as well in a non-AP course. The tuition savings is the biggest benefit to most students. And this is where some of the criticisms come into play - parents pushing students into courses they may not be ready for, with visions of saving big bucks on college tuition. I can live with that, but the other aspect of this whole thing is the role the College Board plays in making money off all this and having substantial power to establish what colleges must accept as equivalent to their introductory courses.

Many high school administrators are pushing more unprepared students into AP classes because the magazines evaluate school rankings (best high schools) by the number of students taking AP classes, not the pass-rate. As long as this continues, the classes will be large and full of students who are in over their heads. The teachers can't possibly do much more than test prep because of the large class size and number of unprepared students. It's logical that the scores are going down.

What would they know about that? The following is real learning; AP is the same sort that MOST receive in the U.S., every day: Teach to some Test.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/opinion/02engel.html?th&emc=th

and I think they've benefitted extremely, certainly as far as recognizing what they want to do with their lives. I was only prepared for REAL learning after a long time, and don't think I've ever really benefitted from it.

I think of learning as building a net and as more and more line gets put down, less and less slips through. If the lines are weak they break easily. The stronger lines are the ones that come from more practical learning than rote or lecture. I do think I received too much repetition, forced memorization and lecture and too little instruction in cooperation, social skills and history.

I shouldn't have said so much that schools prepared me for real learning as much as my schools and parents nurtured my love of learning and did provide some opportunities for real learning. That is probably a more fair statement.

I'd love to see more students in them. Many like me are bored in regular level classes. Its when challenged that many people do learn. I know I did. And while things were definitely emphasized as being on the test, everything was taught in depth.
I don't think its a coincidence that one of my best semesters at college was my first (honor roll), unlike many I knew. My AP classwork set me up for the college experience well.
Honestly, I think without these classes, a lot more people would struggle in the college environment.
You know what else I learned in AP? GREAT STUDY HABITS...soemthing that is crucial at the university level....

Juku is the Japanese system of private "cram schools" that kids go to in order to score high enough on their college entrance exams they won't wind up asking if you want fries with that. It looks like they've done the same thing here--if you don't take three million AP classes you will wind up in barber college.

brags about the AP classes their kid is taking, and then when I ask how the kid did on the AP exams, I'll get a blank stare. In those cases I've never been able to find out from the parent, no matter how carefully I question, if it's really and truly an AP class but the kid never mentioned the AP exam, of if it's more of a scam where the kid actually is in an AP class but for some reason never mentioned the exam, or (which I think was most likely the case in these instances) the kid was claiming to parent it's an AP class when it isn't one at all.

Both of my sons took several AP classes, did well in both the class and on the AP exam and it benefitted them in college.

For one of my classes my AP Bio, I didn't choose to take the exam. I wanted the extra learning before I went to college.
BTW, as I make my living doing biology, I think that should tell you something.

you can get college credit rather easily at most colleges if you do well enough. Sometimes even a 3 (the equivalent of a C) will exempt you from that class in college.

My point really was about the parents who were completely unaware of the existence of the exam, and how a good score on the exam could get college credit for the kid, which made me wonder just how much attention the parents were paying to their kid's academic life.

rigorous "honors" courses but never AP. My daughter has friends who take up to 5 AP classes a semester. These kids are stressed beyond belief and have no time for any sort of social life. Some of them are in way over their heads. One poor kid is taking AP Calculus and getting a "D." The "D" and a couple of "B's" in other AP courses have lowered her GPA and will make getting into a top-notch college (which was her goal) that much harder. She's shot herself in the foot.

I'm not saying kids shouldn't take these classes - only that school administrators shouldn't pressure everyone - qualified or not - to do so.

I disagree with a number of things said in this clip about A.P. courses. I took an A.P. course during high school and it was not that hard. The only change that should be made the the A.P. system is that students should be limited in the number of A.P. courses they can take per year. Students should be limited to taking one or two A.P. courses per year. That way the course load will not be too large. In addition, what the guy at the end of the clip said should be promoted. Kids should be encouraged to take A.P. courses they like or courses in which they can get credit for college.

It is not the fault of the A.P. courses that some kids decide not to continue to study what they learned after they have taken the course. That is a decision the kids make. Just because some kids decide they do not want to study a course after they have completed it does not mean the course should be ended.

I think a lot of kids take these classes because college is so expensive. If you can get out of a class that can save you hundreds of dollars. I took the English AP and got out of 2 semesters of Freshman English. I think if we'd had money for school I wouldn't have been so stressed about acing the exam. It was kind of sad since the school I eventually went to offered Freshman English taught by Michael McClure, which would have been an incredible experience. But I was still grateful not to have to shell out tons of money to have to get the credits.

If college wasn't so damn unaffordable and financial aid so out of reach for many, maybe this would be less of a pressure on kids. I was in a strange hole for financial aid since my family was incredibly short on cash flow, but my mother owns a house (got it in the divorce). I was always getting turned down for things and had to do the whole thing pretty much on loans.

Forty years ago, what we called "college prep" classes were preparation for the college experience. What amazes me about America is the number of "what started out as" reasonable ideas that have been run off the rails by psychotic crank turners. It seems Americans have never learned from the story of the goose that laid the golden egg and spend all their waking hours trying to figure out how to clone the damn bird. I think it's time for me to seek out a culture that is not so steeped in overachievement, whether it be in salary, bonuses, grades, income properties, or cars.

the courses were college prep. AP didn't exist. And, shockingly, many of my classmates have done very well in business and in professional careers despite having taken college courses only in college - where they belong. The world really has gone nuts. Kids today are under such insane pressure to succeed at levels they aren't prepared for. And they are asked to sacrifice their teenage years in the process.

My 16-year-old daughter's school has two dances (both formal) per year and no on-campus clubs that are "just for fun." All of the activities are geared toward looking good on a college application. "Cancer awareness club" would have been a non-starter at my high school way back when, but that and other serious-minded activities are all that is offered today. And I live in a suburban area which offers no other "fun" outlets for kids, so they are basically stuck without a social life.

I'm a substitute teacher and see kids in junior high struggling with algebra and geometry - courses that used to be considered high school level. WTF?

And where is the proof that any of this matters? Employers are only looking for people they can hire cheap and then discard anyway.

You're right - a significant reassessment of the entire "kill yourself to achieve at any cost" culture is long overdue. Things have gotten out of hand.

kids are staring into the face of another 4 or 5 years of high unemployment and outsourcing. I see us quickly becoming over educated and under employed. Until companies stop outsourcing at all levels, things will get worse and worse. I promise that AT&T doesn't give a damn about our kids or about the GPA in Bangalore, India - they only care about $7 to $10 an hour in Bangalore, India along with the tax breaks they get for outsourcing to contract agencies there.

We have an institutionalized cruelty towards children and education. I'm always horrified when I hear ignorant people harping on how bad public education is here in USA. On the one hand I empathize with the stress of having two parents working and unable to help their kids with school work. On the other hand I wonder why they keep putting conservative democrats and conservative republicans into public office who are whacking the middle-class in the knees on a daily basis.

If you want the best work and the most competitive results - we need to focus and and encourage and reward people for doing what they love - that passion results in excellence. Instead we seem to mock anyone who isn't doing it for the money even though they hate what they are doing and have no aptitude for it.

Then there is the "I paid for this, I worked hard for this, my family suffered for this, I pay taxes for this - I deserve an A" effect leading to out of control grade inflation and hostile parents and undisciplined children.

I swear we are moving to a 2nd world model with some sort of caste system - I can't quite articulate the effect as succinctly as I'd like, but it just seems we are trying to emulate India and China - and how have these countries advanced? By taking advantage of our schools and technology (critical developments in telecommunications, semiconductors, aeronautics, agriculture, medicine - all developed by the recipients of a US public school education).

It is intolerable to hear Wall Street complain that we are not smart enough for jobs as they train unskilled labor in Asia and sell our technology for pennies on the dollar. We can't educate ourselves to $7 an hour.

Thank you for posting.

k/r

I am not sure that a case can be made that AP actually saves that much in terms of dollars. If you are planning full time in a 4 year college, then the savings are more driven by how long you are in college and not how many classes taken while there.

A bigger consideration is the Critical Path. This is the longest sequence of prerequisites required to meet your degree requirements. For example a Biochemistry major critical path may look something like this:

High School Chem

College
Chem I
Chem II (perhaps I and II folded into a single course)
Organic Chem I
Organic Chem II
Biochemistry I
Biochemistry II
The sequence is three years long. The proposed plan of study given by the school delays Biochem I and Biochem II to the Senior year

For my daughter deciding about AP, she has to get past the fact that some Universities will not give credit for Chem I/II even with a 5 on the AP. Our solution will be for her to take Chem I between H.S. Soph and Junior and Chem II between H.S. Junior and Senior at the local university and not mess around with the AP course. More dollars upfront but less headache later perhaps. Also the grade will count in her Science GPA for medical school.

With judicious choice of classes (and being able to actually get the classes) she can finish the B.S. in three years - an important consideration if you are thinking medical school

They are APPLICATION type exams..In other words it tests how well you can apply what you've learned. Also you can TAKE an AP class WITHOUT taking the exam. I did that with AP biology. I took my AP English exam and tested out of Freshman English, which would have been a waste of time for me. The extra credits also allowed me to complete my BS degree in exactly 4 years WITHOUT summer school which is something rare these days
. And "cramming" doesn't help when they ask you to analyze literature and write an on the spot essay about it.
Personally I think more students SHOULD take AP classes, if not the exams necessary. It exposes students to things they would never get in high school otherwise and it gives them a good leg up in college.
Of all the testing I had to do, the AP exams seemed the most fair, and the best assesment of learning.

for a certain type of student, who has parents or a guidance counselor or someone who can identify the checklist of things that elite colleges look for in an application packet. AP classes are part of our educational caste system: the availability of AP courses says more about the tax revenue of the school district than it does about the quality of the education provided or received.

I don't particularly enjoy teaching the type of student our current system embraces as the ideal. They walk into the college classroom looking for a checklist of things they can memorize so they can get the A so they can get into graduate school and start the whole process over again. :puke:

I would appreciate Obama taking this intelligent, thoughtful teachers advice under consideration.

GPA.

but I do defend AP courses overall. One advantage not mentioned is giving you extra credits you may need if colleges make it harder to fit your classes in. Public universities in CA are having problems guarenteeing offerings of courses to allow people to graduate on time. Having that extra credit to fit in may become necessary to avoid a fifth year.

Two of my grandkids are taking an AP course. Both in English. I took Freshman English in college and we had over 100 kids in the class. I can't say that it was an enlightening experience and all the guys and girls that I knew just wanted to get it over with. This was over fifty years ago and I don't know how they are conducting the classes today. What struck me was the comment that the availability of AP classes may be predicated on the wealth of the school district. Seems that wealth is still a factor as it was when I was in school. Kids that came from private prep schools definitely had a leg up on most of the kids from public schools.

he has been doing since 7th grade. i will keep this in mind though, and what is being said.

appreciate. thanks.