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Tuesday, December 4, 2012
NPR: Op-Ed: AP Classes Are One of America's 'Great Frauds'
Hundreds of thousands of high school students enroll in Advanced Placement classes each year, with hopes to strengthen high school transcript and earn college credit. In a piece for the Atlantic, former college professor and high school teacher John Tierney argues that AP courses don't deliver their promised benefits...
I can not say my story represents all of MC's schools but I can say first hand that schools such as Wheaton and probably others in the DCC are under pressure to show higher numbers in Honors and AP classes because it represents progress in the school. Unfortuneately these classes are often used to get kids that may be genuinely trying, although not performing necessarily at a high rate, to get them out of the "riff raff" of disruptive kids in the baseline class. There is no difference between a regular class and Honors in the teaching approach, just at the work volume or pace of the class. So a kid potentially goes from a class that is at their pace but is filled with distractions, to a class that may be less disruptive but at a pace they can't handle.
I can not say my story represents all of MC's schools but I can say first hand that schools such as Wheaton and probably others in the DCC are under pressure to show higher numbers in Honors and AP classes because it represents progress in the school. Unfortuneately these classes are often used to get kids that may be genuinely trying, although not performing necessarily at a high rate, to get them out of the "riff raff" of disruptive kids in the baseline class. There is no difference between a regular class and Honors in the teaching approach, just at the work volume or pace of the class. So a kid potentially goes from a class that is at their pace but is filled with distractions, to a class that may be less disruptive but at a pace they can't handle.
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