Scarsdale Adjusts to Life Without Advanced Placement Courses

Any time you try to compare college applicants by looking at their high school records, which is something college admission offices have to do every admission season, you run into the problem of high school courses not being particularly comparable. That has been true even with the brand name labels "AP" and "IB." The Advanced Placement program caught on not because of school districts like Scarsdale, but because of school districts elsewhere around the United States whose students had trouble making the case that they were ready for tough colleges. Some families, including homeschooling families like mine, really appreciate an opportunity for bright young people to test in what is somewhat like a British A-level system to show what they know.

(Historically, the Advanced Placement program began in the 1950s when prep school students no longer automatically were placed in the same small group of elite colleges. Some prep school students went to pretty good, but not tip-top, colleges and found out they were repeating in college work that they had already done in high school. The AP tests, which began in such subjects as French and chemistry, gave such students a chance to get placed into higher-level college courses that wouldn't repeat what they already learned in high school.)

I'm all for pluralism, so it's fine by me if one school district or another either decides to offer AP courses or decides to NOT offer AP courses. Note that the policy of the College Board is to make AP tests available to homeschoolers and self-studiers of all kinds, so, as the linked article notes, some students in high schools without AP courses still take AP tests.

What would a school district like that say if federal curriculum guidelines became more comprehensive and specified, say, high school level science education standards in much greater detail?

My school has done something similar for quite some time - we don't have any AP English or Social Studies courses. Rather, we have a broad variety of electives in those areas. This works extremely well, as students can take courses they are interested in without feeling shepherded into the insanity that is absorbing the entire history of the English language in time for a single exam. We still do have APs in math and science, however.

From the article: Physics students now study string theory — a hot topic in some college courses that is absent from the Advanced Placement exam.

FAIL.

<blockquote>“To us, their courses don’t look any different from high-quality A.P. courses,” [College Board VP Trevor Packer] said. “Simply changing the letters on the course from A.P. to A.T. looks very cosmetic to us.”</blockquote>

I would have to agree; these students are still expected to take the AP exams. If this helps them get away from "teaching to the test," though, more power to them. At my (very good, private) high school, I took the AP English and AP Literature exams without having ever taken courses branded as "AP." In fact, my school didn't even make a distinction between honors and "regular" English; it was just a uniformly excellent program. I got a 4 on both exams. I did take a course called "AP European History," but I cannot think of one instance that I studied for the AP test curriculum the whole year.

But, hey, coming up with a dynamic curriculum that doesn't focus on rote memorization and easy-to-grade multiple-choice tests is hard, especially with class sizes larger than 15-20 like mine were.

It was a bit of a personal shock to find this article on HN. I attended Scarsdale High and AP English was one of my favorite classes. That said, it was the strength of a wonderful, memorable teacher -- Julie Leerburger -- that made the class my favorite, not the structure of the AP system.

This is good for a number of reasons. One, because everyone agrees that this improves the curriculum and shows that standardized tests can be a handicap even among honors-level students. Scarsdale has courage to be a trend-setter Two, it is a big challenge to CB to get their act together. Some subjects, imo, are better for APs than others. Econ, gov, math, and physics are well-suited, while the english language/lit is pretty much agreed to be the least useful in terms of actual learning. And even the subjects that are best-suited to a test format have their flaws. For instance, CB specifies no definitive textbook for the histories, so you basically need 1 good textbook and a contrasting review book to cover all the material. Even Physics B has it's flaws. Even though the test/lab format works well for the test, NO class ever gets through the last portion on nuclear particles, and there is little understanding of it come test day. Hopefully this will pressure CB to reform.

Also, this could be a good trend considering how exhausting APs are. Colleges look at how many are taken relative to those available, and a chance to be in an "honor's" course without the stress of an AP would be welcome to those feeling pressured to take as many as possible.

Thanks for the article; it gives me hope that we can stop obsessing over the damned tests and concentrate on teaching the subject material.