How should we measure the value of Advanced Placement classes if the effects are hard to quantify? A recent study of 28,000 Texas students shows little gain in college grade-point average or in decreasing dropout rates based on AP experience. Should this discourage our children from taking challenging classes in high school? My experience with high school students is that they rise to the challenge. Students who take courses in which they read, write and think at an advanced level will almost always find those courses worthwhile — even if gains can’t be shown statistically.
Based on 23 years of teaching high school seniors, I find that students scoff at teachers who give out worksheets and require repetitive homework. Regardless of their aptitude, students would rather read unabridged novels and plays than textbook excerpts. They prefer assignments requiring creativity — the kind that can’t be shared or copied. It might sound counterintuitive, but students “cheat” more in easy classes because, according to them, those assignments “waste” their time.
Although AP courses are not for every student, most can benefit from those standards — based on 50 years of testing, workshops, summer institutes and conferences. Many teachers who have helped develop AP curricula recognize the value of incorporating those elements in non-AP classes.
What makes an AP course different if even non-AP classes can benefit from those standards? The content never “dumbs down” the subject. In physics, students study laws of motion using advanced mathematical formulae, and often apply those laws to something familiar — like a roller coaster. A literature course in any language will include the best, most difficult works and never play games of “hunt the symbol” or “find the foreshadowing.” No AP course tailors the content to make it less complex. Literature is often puzzling and contradictory; interestingly, the same is true in science and mathematics. Only the best high school classes concede that there are no answers for many of the most difficult questions.
To ensure high-level course content, the College Board requires that every AP course pass a syllabus audit. In English literature, not only must there be a selection of readings by classic English and American authors, teachers must include works from the 16th through the 20th centuries and assign both analytical and interpretive writing assignments. These requirements guarantee that every AP student will be exposed to a high-quality curriculum.
Yet if a third of students taking AP English don’t receive college credit, and if the Texas study is correct that AP experience does not guarantee a higher GPA, why shouldn’t our children opt to take an easier class? Do scores matter more than the integrity of the course?
Once you believe that nothing is beneficial unless it can be graphed, you miss the whole point of a quality education — which is evolutionary, recursive and ongoing. Not everything we learn can be quantified or measured. AP classes are still going strong because they make no compromises, and those students who have returned to visit often say that the value of my course had nothing to do with their AP score. “Your class pushed me to ask questions — just like life,” they say. That’s worth more than a bump in college GPA to me.
Erica Jacobs, whose column appears Wednesday, teaches at George Mason University. E-mail her at
mailto:[email protected] “>[email protected].
