But presumably all this extra attention is NOT happening during lecture, correct? That is what I was talking about–what happens during lecture. If you want to help one of your students, I’m not thinking you take a break from your lecture to just help that one student. You tell him to come see you during your planning period or after school.
If you happened to get a student in your AP class who can’t write an essay to save his life, you would not dumb down your lesson plan for his sole benefit, correct? You would either help him outside of class, or you would recommend he transfer to another class.
puddlegum expressed worries about what would happen if you opened AP curricula up to all students rather than hand-picked students. I don’t think think those worries are valid based on my experience in AP classes.
AP classes aren’t uniformly on a lecture paradigm, any more than college classes all are. And certainly the instructional methods in class are really different than what you’d use in a college class: bright 15 year olds are different than “average” 18 year olds and respond to different methods and different approaches. The AP teachers I know who try to replicate the college version of their course are generally less effective than those who structure the course to match the different population.
But isn’t that what opportunity hoarding is? Assuming that opportunity is a finite thing, then a person who takes an opportunity (tenure-track professorship) is keeping someone else from that spot, since there are a limited number of spots in a given field. If the former uses their opportunity to then raise the bar of admittance to that opportunity, then they are indeed keeping “challengers from entering”. Maybe not challengers to that exact position, but challengers to other opportunities (like grants).
We really need the OP to come back and provide a formal definition of opportunity hoarding so that the debate can be more substantive.
The point is that the C+ student is not going to graduate from Harvard: they’re going to spend however much tuition is until they get kicked out for not being able to perform. That’s not fair to the student who is now probably in debt and that’s not fair to the A+ student that didn’t get in because Harvard has limited space for students.
All of this is certainly true, but I asked you what you do when you have struggling students.
I’m assuming that there is some base level of ability that you expect from your students. I’m assuming that if you had students who were truly remedial (akin to students with only algebra I under their belts trying to take calculus), you would not attempt to accomodate them, but instead you’d refer them to a different classroom. Is this assumption correct? If not, then how do you think an “open enrollment” framework to AP classes would change your workload and teaching approach?
I’m at a school where we only have pre-AP and AP. We do have some gatekeeping at the admissions level, which I am not at all happy with, but there it is. We do have a fair number of kids who come in well below grade-level in English (STEM school–so if they have the math, we take them.) Generally speaking, interventions are going to start way, way before they if they did get all the way to AP, but once they are here I am going to teach him.
I was at a comprehensive for over a decade. I never once suggested to a kid that he drop out–that was a conversation for counselors, parents, peers, mentors. And I never forced a kid to leave. And I had plenty that were not traditionally “ready”–you manage. And yeah, I provided in class as well as out of class supports. It’s called teaching.
This is an anecdote, so obviously it doesn’t apply everywhere, but at my high school, all the teachers who taught AP and IB classes also taught regular classes. And this school had 2000 students, so hardly a tiny school. In many cases, adding more AP/IB classes just means the teacher uses the AP/IB curriculum for more classes.
A teacher who’s not capable of teaching the advanced curriculum is really not capable of being a teacher at all. Like, AP classes are advanced for high school kids. Someone in the teaching profession should be conversant in the subject matter several levels above all but the most exceptional students.
This seems like such a terrible policy. There’s no reason a student couldn’t demonstrate their ability in a regular class and get bumped up to the more advanced class.
My kids go to a very diverse school system. My son is Asian - which here in Minnesota doesn’t mean “smart Chinese kid” - it means “impoverished Hmong kid.” My son hangs with minority kids. My daughter is white - and hangs with white kids.
My kids are 13 months apart in age.
When moving to middle school - with near identical test scores - my daughter was put in the way advanced math class. My son was put into the basic “you’ll get through high school on time” math class. My daughter was put in the advanced English class. My son was put into Reading for Dummies.
It took two years to straighten out and by then it was too late. My minority kid had been tagged as “not smart” and a “troublemaker.”
You look around at the kids at the school - over 50% minority - and overwhelmingly the kids in AP courses, in band and in choir are white. Not Asian, not black. In a 40% African American school, my daughter is taking three AP courses - and there is A black kid in one of them. The Asian kids are more represented, but not proportionally so.
Now, I don’t think you can accuse the white kids of opportunity hording - there are plenty of open seats in my daughter’s AP Computer Science Course. If they need more APUSH, they open up more classes. The issue is that the kids are getting routed LONG before they are thinking about AP courses.
That’s interesting, Manda JO. My AP instructors were great teachers too, but they did not share your teaching philosophy. My first encounter with the “weed out class” was 11th grade AP history. Mr. B. let everyone know that if we couldn’t keep up with his demands, then it was 100% our problem, not his. And while it was a shock to the system to be treated like a college student at the tender age of 16, I can’t say it hurt me in the long run. A lot of kids ended up transferring to honors history by the end of the first semester because they couldn’t hack it. Those kids weren’t harmed either, I don’t think. Just temporarily embarrassed.
I think if a school provides good instruction across the board and doesn’t save the very best teachers for the very best students, it shouldn’t matter.
My daughter’s AP English prep work started in 6th grade when she was targeted for “Advanced” English. A year early my son had been tagged for standard English.
She wrote more papers. She learned how to use vocabulary. She read novels and non-fiction and did research. By the time she was in AP English, she isn’t one grade level above him - she’s two. They’ve fit an extra two years of English work into all the advanced English classes. My son would have sunk like a rock - he just wasn’t prepped. He can get an ACT score that would put him in an ordinary college English class - but AP English is “you don’t need a Freshman English in college” class.
Math is worse.
Its a little easier in the Social Sciences - those don’t have the prep work - APUSH and U.S. History aren’t that different except one covers A LOT more material and prepares you for a test. But its just the quantity of material (and your ability to organize it an analyze it for the essay portion of the test).
The AP Science stuff is tough - its a college level Science course.
But AP isn’t the be all and end all. There are colleges out there for kids who didn’t take AP Calc and AP Chem. Plenty of them.
Your points are definitely valid, but I don’t think they should completely preclude the possibility of some students changing tracks. Those are real and major challenges, but not insurmountable ones. Like, the student who belongs in AP English classes is someone who enjoys reading and does so outside of school. That person has the capacity to improve faster.
I agree Math is worse. But some students can improve and catch up if they make an effort.
I am quite good at math. In high school, I spent most of my time in math class as a sort of roving tutor/teachers aide, or playing around with the challenging optional problems the teacher would pose to the math dorks. Which in retrospect was great. There’s probably no better way to really master a subject than to teach it to someone else, and I got to play with fun math problems instead of the repetitive drudgery that much of the class did. That could be available to the top students in regular-level classes as well, giving them a chance to reach a little further and develop more skills.
I’m reminded of something else from my high school education, which is that most classes had projects and things where you had a choice between a number of options, some of which were clearly more challenging than others. And the teachers generally made it clear that you’d get more latitude if you chose the harder one and didn’t quite pull it off. That provides the opportunity for students who want to reach. I remember my stepmom chiding me for always choosing the hardest option, which in retrospect was often true, but it wasn’t the way I looked at it at the time. I chose the more interesting option.
I think they are harmed. Even when you control for SAT scores, students who make a 3 in at least one AP course in high school are a lot more likely to persist in college–to still be there that second year–than students who do not. Pushing yourself academically makes you better prepared, makes you ready. Kids that are prevented from trying, weeded out by needlessly heavy work loads or rigorous grading, or not supported when they have skill gaps may never recover from that lost opportunity.
We have a kid here who failed everything Freshman year. Did not look or act like anyone’s idea of an “AP kid”. Trust me when I say that in a comprehensive high school, he would never have been pushed into AP courses, and a few years earlier, before we changed our philosophy, we’d have likely sent him home to regular classes in a regular school. His PSAT freshman and sophomore year put him in the bottom half of the country. He’d have been eaten alive by the kind of teacher you are talking about–and he’s passed 5 AP exams so far. By the end of his junior year. And here, in this building, where expectations are high, that’s still the bottom of his class–they were all threes. But it puts him in the top 2-3% of the country. And anyone who didn’t believe in pretty much total open enrollment would have sent this kid home. I have dozens of stories like that. It’s more normal than not.
Quoted for truth. You can, in fact, pull up a kid who hasn’t the foundation, but the sort of system that gleefully gate-keeps is the same sort of system that thinks catching a kid up is somehow the same as lowering standards.
Maybe at your school. Not at my school. Not at the school the woman I just asked teaches at. In her case is a separate curriculum. If more kids can handle it, they have more honors sections and fewer regular.
Some schools might handle things that way, but not Harvard. If you get accepted to Harvard, they will drag you over that graduation podium kicking and screaming. And Harvard has a vast panoply of financial aid available. If you get accepted to Harvard and you’re not rich, they’ll pay for you to go. Sure, the rich kids pay, but lots of kids don’t.
The point is, Harvard and the various highly competitive schools won’t let this happen. You aren’t brought to Harvard with your C+ average and told to take out student loans and sink or swim. Remember how in our crappy high schools and colleges that the guidance counselors were a bad joke? Yeah, that’s pretty much universally true at most places. Not Harvard and other elite schools.
The point is, Harvard is for the elite, and they won’t accept you if they don’t think you have the potential to be a member of the elite. Sure, people drop out. But they don’t drop out because they couldn’t pay the tuition, or because they fell through the cracks and nobody noticed. Other schools, sure. Not Harvard.
But what about students who need preparation for the “weed out” mentality they will encounter in college? Personally, I believe that I was able to thrive in college because I had already been run through the gauntlet in high school. College history was an absolute joke for me because Mr. B’s history class hadn’t been.
I personally believe that the philosophy behind “weed out” courses is questionable. But as long as they are emblematic of selective universities, I think they have a place in high school.
Furthermore, I would argue that there’s no reason honors classes can’t be designed so honors students are adequately pushed. If your typical honors kid isn’t being adequately pushed and if they are graduating unprepared for college work, then that means that honors programs are pretty pointless, right? And if this is true, then there is a heap of merit to the notion that AP classes are “opportunity hoarding”. Because it would mean a kid being recommended for an honors class is going to be at a major disadvantage in college . This simply should not be. “Honors” shouldn’t be seen as mediocre. But that’s what it is if AP students have so many more advantages.
I totally believe this happened, and I also think it is pretty sad. It is sad because if it weren’t for you giving him a chance, he would have fallen through the cracks. My high school could have had OP enrollment for AP, but I think the teachers would have still felt it important to “man the gates” so as not to dumb the curriculum down. The parents LOVED that Mr. B weeded out the “dumb” and “lazy”, because it meant he was keeping out the riff-raff (read poor and melanistic) and maintaining their kids’ elite status. I sincerely believe that it weren’t for Mr. B. manning the gates the way he did, those parents would have enrolled their kids into private school without a second thought. The school didn’t want that to happen, so the administrators encouraged Mr. B.'s teaching approach.
But don’t you think that if instruction was improved at lower levels, there wouldn’t be such desperation to get into AP classes? I mean, if the rigors of AP provide that much of a leg up in the college rat race, then what is the harm in using a similar model for honors classes while leaving out the exam? That way, all the smart students get the same push without having to fight tooth and nail for a limited number of spots.
[QUOTE=the lede of that article]
Donald Trump’s son-in-law was accepted into the Ivy League university in the wake of a $2.5m pledge made by his parents
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I don’t think Kushner’s grades has squat to do with his admission or his graduation from Harvard. Try that with a C+ student that lived in a trailer before going to Harvard and see how they do.
Perhaps “C+ student” and “Harvard” were a bad example. I was just trying to paint a colorful image of a student who is unlikely to succeed in a challenging program of study. Perhaps something like “remedial math student” and “graduate mathematics program at your local university” would be a better example.
I recommend “Hillbilly Elegy” by JD Vance, if you haven’t had a chance to read this book. He was poor but didn’t grow up in a trailer and he didn’t attend Harvard right out of high school, but his story nicely demonstrates the folly of using grades to measure a student’s potential. And surely a C+ student with a transcript full of advanced courses is not in the same position as a C+ student with remedial classes. A C+ student who tests in the 99th percentile is different from a C+ student who tests in the 50th.
Furthermore, not all college majors require the same intellectual rigor. A mediocre high school student might do okay in as a fine arts program…not because fine arts is a “mediocre” subject, but because this field doesn’t require the same kind of effort as required in physics or philosophy.
If a student is average across the board, I agree he will struggle in an elite program. But being average in one metric doesn’t necessarily mean a student will be average in all the others. Being average in one setting doesn’t mean you will flunk out in another.