To AP or Not To AP, is that the question?
Advanced Placement (AP) classes are quickly becoming the preferred form of currency for being accepted into the selective colleges and universities, but passing scores on AP tests are minimal compared to the number of students taking AP classes because a comprehensive guide to texts for these classes is nonexistent. In The Right to Literacy in Secondary Schools, Suzanne Platt (2009) explains that just telling our students what texts mean and not telling them how we were able to draw the meaning out of the text is very dangerous and states, “When we teach around the text, we inadvertently teach our students that thinking is not important” (pg. 20). Teachers of AP classes are not actually given any standard training or guide for what textbooks may be best for their classes or what other types of “texts” could also be very helpful to them and their future students. In an article in The Atlantic named “AP Classes are a Scam,” John Tierney (2012) writes, “To me, the most serious count against Advanced Placement courses is that the AP curriculum leads to a rigid stultification — a kind of mindless genuflection to a prescribed plan of study that squelches creativity and free inquiry.”
Having taught two different AP courses, AP Chemistry and AP Calculus BC, for the last three years I am able to see where John Tierney is coming from because the only flow of information to an AP teacher comes almost exclusively from an association known as College Board. I personally felt as if I was slave to College Board’s AP central website, that I constantly had to check in order to make sure that I was not missing any important information that might be emphasized more on the AP exam in May than I might have taken the time to go in depth to in my explanation. I was always concerned with the possibility that my students were not actually learning the material I was trying to teach because I was always concerned with what my students AP scores would be when they were revealed in July. In Unflattening, Nick Sousanis (2015) writes, “Yet too often we fall for the deception that the power to determine who you are and your path ahead are not in your hands, but are subject to external forces” (pg. 144). I feel as if I fell into this deception as an AP teacher when I no longer trusted my own content knowledge and choices of text because I was constantly aware of what I could or might miss which is dictated by College Board.
I no longer considered myself a calculus or chemistry teacher, but instead an AP calculus and AP chemistry teacher which seemed to no longer relate to what I was capable of teaching my students, but instead related only to how effectively I was able to seamlessly incorporate the bombardment of information I received daily from College Board. In the article “AP Classes are a Scam,” Tierney states, “The miscellany of AP courses offered in U.S. high schools under the imprimatur of the College Board probably started with good intentions. The idea, going back to the 1950’s, was to offer college-level classes and exams to high-school students.” When I first started teaching AP classes I too thought that the reason for AP classes was to teach and challenge students to learn how to think for themselves while at the same time exposing them to subject matter that they might deem interesting or something they wanted to pursue after high-school. The literacy of the students we teach in these AP classes has become clouded by the very teachers who are sent to teach them because of the varying standards set forth by College Board every year that handicap teachers to only being able to refer to the “texts” given to them through the AP Central website. In an article in Politico, “AP Classes are Failing AP Students,” Stephanie Simon (2013) writes, “Enrollment in AP classes has soared. But data analyzed by POLITICO shows that the number of kids who bomb the AP exams is growing even more rapidly. The class of 2012, for instance, failed nearly 1.3 million AP exams during their high school careers.” This fact alone should have schools and teachers demanding a better understanding of standards and texts that should be used for these courses.
Unflattening. (2015). S.l.: Harvard University Press.
Plaut, S. (2009). The right to literacy in secondary schools: Creating a culture of thinking. New York: Teachers College Press.
(n.d.). Retrieved July 02, 2016, from http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/ap-classes-are-a-scam/263456/
AP classes failing students. (n.d.). Retrieved July 02, 2016, from http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/education-advanced-placement-classes-tests-095723
