Great article. FYI, elite private schools are also eliminating AP courses. They argue that their own classes are more rigorous and avoid teaching to the test.
In reality, it's just another way that academically talented, middle class white and Asian boys have the deck increasingly stacked against them. Eliminating standardized testing, AP exams, honors classes, etc. means that there are fewer and fewer way to objectively demonstrate excellence and potential. These kids don't have "lived experience" or huge donations to fall back on when applying to college.
The war on merit continues and the casualties keep piling up.
Here in our largest public school district—majority Hispanic, proficiency on math and reading was 13 and 22 percent. This figure gets more dismal decade by decade as the Whites leave for charter schools and the district become more Hispanic. Here to, AP in public institutions is criticized for showing differences among racial groups. I suspect such testing will be eliminated as well in the public sector as it is deemed too White—and too revealing.
Such does no one any good. My experience has been the AP course work was taken for two benefits: strong instructional rigor, and college cost savings. I don’t think the cost savings aspect is nearly as important as the instructional rigor aspect. High school, particularly public HS, has become a joke. Far too many college freshman get slammed when they enter their first year of college classes. Anything we can do to prepare them in how to survive a college level milieu seems a productive use of resources.
Another thing we need to look at is simple mastery of college prerequisites *before* admission. In this town we have a top 20 research university. Last report, 40% of the entering student enrollment was taking “remedial” classes! Folks, “fogging a mirror” does not fulfill college prerequisites. Time to admit to ourselves, college is not for everyone.
Yes, the selection system by merit is under intense attack in Western Civilization, especially in the United States. This is not the case in Russia and China. What do you think this portends for the future?
I'm glad AP exists, but I don't think it's nearly as good of an admissions metric as the SAT or ACT. Even though a majority of high schools may have access to some AP courses, few have access to the full selection, especially the more difficult courses which few students take, like calculus based physics. This makes it harder for high ability students to prove themselves if they come from small or lower performing schools which don't have as many options. It's not group differences I'm worried about, it's individual students being matched up to colleges that they're on the right academic level for.
Is this guys voice an Ai? It’s awesome and makes your articles wonderful to listen to. I wish Substack would let us choose the voice to use instead of that horrible robotic woman Ai.
for 100+ years psychologists have been finding racial and gender differences in intelligence/aptitude testing. they have tried every moderating variable under the sun to explain away the differences. and still the data don't lie. so, as a stupid society we decide to just toss out merit. eventually we'll all be sub standard and everyone will feel wonderful about it. BS! good brains find a way to succeed. that is the story of human evolution and it continues.
I have three kids that only found high school tolerable because of the availability of AP classes. It did several things for them (1) Provided interesting curriculum (2) Created classes of serious students as there was self-selection in enrollment and this provided more enjoyable learning environment (3) The teachers were better as the more knowledgeable teachers chose to teach the APs. Teachers who didn't feel confident in the material didn't teach them. Often a teacher had been teaching the AP course for many years an knew the material well (4) It allowed all of my kids to enter college as Juniors and graduate 1-2 years early saving us tons of tuition dollars. Without APs many kids will tune out high school and be extremely board. I don't consider my kids to be geniuses they simply found the AP curriculum interesting and were inspired by some great teachers that taught their AP classes. I'm glad it was available for them and would be sad if future students don't have the same opportunities.
AP classes are a rip off. The kids work like slaves and IF they pass the test, they get college credit. Meanwhile for ~$500 the kid can take classes like Calculus 101, Physics 101, Chemistry 101. Linear Algebra at a community college, usually online. The workload is easy, the class material is better, the kid avoids AP hell and avoids the classes for freshmen designed to drive them from their major. I would never advise a parent to put thier kid in an AP hell class. I did and it took me till third kid to learn about the online 101 classes.
I agree that community college courses are easier to pass than AP. However, as preparation for rigorous college work APs are better. A full load of APs in high school is like college. You have to take your beating somewhere; better at home surrounded by people who love you than away at college with all the distractions that entails.
Great article. FYI, elite private schools are also eliminating AP courses. They argue that their own classes are more rigorous and avoid teaching to the test.
In reality, it's just another way that academically talented, middle class white and Asian boys have the deck increasingly stacked against them. Eliminating standardized testing, AP exams, honors classes, etc. means that there are fewer and fewer way to objectively demonstrate excellence and potential. These kids don't have "lived experience" or huge donations to fall back on when applying to college.
The war on merit continues and the casualties keep piling up.
Here in our largest public school district—majority Hispanic, proficiency on math and reading was 13 and 22 percent. This figure gets more dismal decade by decade as the Whites leave for charter schools and the district become more Hispanic. Here to, AP in public institutions is criticized for showing differences among racial groups. I suspect such testing will be eliminated as well in the public sector as it is deemed too White—and too revealing.
Such does no one any good. My experience has been the AP course work was taken for two benefits: strong instructional rigor, and college cost savings. I don’t think the cost savings aspect is nearly as important as the instructional rigor aspect. High school, particularly public HS, has become a joke. Far too many college freshman get slammed when they enter their first year of college classes. Anything we can do to prepare them in how to survive a college level milieu seems a productive use of resources.
Another thing we need to look at is simple mastery of college prerequisites *before* admission. In this town we have a top 20 research university. Last report, 40% of the entering student enrollment was taking “remedial” classes! Folks, “fogging a mirror” does not fulfill college prerequisites. Time to admit to ourselves, college is not for everyone.
Yes, the selection system by merit is under intense attack in Western Civilization, especially in the United States. This is not the case in Russia and China. What do you think this portends for the future?
I'm glad AP exists, but I don't think it's nearly as good of an admissions metric as the SAT or ACT. Even though a majority of high schools may have access to some AP courses, few have access to the full selection, especially the more difficult courses which few students take, like calculus based physics. This makes it harder for high ability students to prove themselves if they come from small or lower performing schools which don't have as many options. It's not group differences I'm worried about, it's individual students being matched up to colleges that they're on the right academic level for.
Is this guys voice an Ai? It’s awesome and makes your articles wonderful to listen to. I wish Substack would let us choose the voice to use instead of that horrible robotic woman Ai.
Yup.
for 100+ years psychologists have been finding racial and gender differences in intelligence/aptitude testing. they have tried every moderating variable under the sun to explain away the differences. and still the data don't lie. so, as a stupid society we decide to just toss out merit. eventually we'll all be sub standard and everyone will feel wonderful about it. BS! good brains find a way to succeed. that is the story of human evolution and it continues.
I have three kids that only found high school tolerable because of the availability of AP classes. It did several things for them (1) Provided interesting curriculum (2) Created classes of serious students as there was self-selection in enrollment and this provided more enjoyable learning environment (3) The teachers were better as the more knowledgeable teachers chose to teach the APs. Teachers who didn't feel confident in the material didn't teach them. Often a teacher had been teaching the AP course for many years an knew the material well (4) It allowed all of my kids to enter college as Juniors and graduate 1-2 years early saving us tons of tuition dollars. Without APs many kids will tune out high school and be extremely board. I don't consider my kids to be geniuses they simply found the AP curriculum interesting and were inspired by some great teachers that taught their AP classes. I'm glad it was available for them and would be sad if future students don't have the same opportunities.
AP classes are a rip off. The kids work like slaves and IF they pass the test, they get college credit. Meanwhile for ~$500 the kid can take classes like Calculus 101, Physics 101, Chemistry 101. Linear Algebra at a community college, usually online. The workload is easy, the class material is better, the kid avoids AP hell and avoids the classes for freshmen designed to drive them from their major. I would never advise a parent to put thier kid in an AP hell class. I did and it took me till third kid to learn about the online 101 classes.
I agree that community college courses are easier to pass than AP. However, as preparation for rigorous college work APs are better. A full load of APs in high school is like college. You have to take your beating somewhere; better at home surrounded by people who love you than away at college with all the distractions that entails.