Commentary; Posted: 2/8/06
Better, fairer ways to challenge students
Joe Nathan
Education Columnist
Minnesota college student Briana Falk and the National Academy of Sciences have an important warning for Congress about advanced placement courses ó the kind that President Bush proposed expanding in his ìState of the Unionî speech.
Based on what they are telling us, Congress should expand, rather than adopt President Bushís recommendations regarding advanced placement courses.
In his State of the Union speech, the president proposed, ìto train 70,000 high school teachers to lead advanced placement courses in math and science.î
That would be great for the College Board, a huge non-profit based in New York City that runs the AP program. Itís not necessarily so great for the nationís students.
AP courses are designed to challenge high school students. They are offered in many academic areas.
According to the College Board, 17,437 Minnesota high school students took more than 27,000 advanced placement tests in the 2004-2005 school year.
But recent research raises important questions about AP courses.
In 2002, the National Academy of Science, a highly respected, non-partisan independent group released a report with many concerns about AP. One of the central problems of AP courses is that colleges decide whether to give students credit for taking an AP course on the basis of only one examination, given at the end of the course.
As the National Academy put it, ìUsing several sources of evidence of student progress ó can provide a more accurate picture of what students know compared with a single measure ó the single end of year examinations as found in AP do not adequately capture student learning.î
When our Center interviewed hundreds of Minnesota high school students last year regarding post-secondary options courses, we also sometimes heard about AP courses. Post-secondary options courses are taken on college campuses. Tuition and books are free for eligible students.
Briana Falk, a Minnesota high school graduate who now attends Wheaton College in Illinois, told us that she took several AP courses before participating full time in PSEO her senior year.
ìWhile I enjoyed some of my AP classes, it did not seem fair to have your college credit depend on one exam at the end of the year.î Falk clearly agrees with the National Academy of Sciences.
That National Academy study also criticized the ìexcessive breath of coverageî in AP courses, or, as a New York Times article on their study put it - their conclusion that AP courses ìcrammed in too much material at the expense of understanding.î
PSEO is a strong, but not the solo alternative to AP courses.
More than 14,000 Minnesota high school students took College in the Schools courses last year. CIS courses involve college-university/high school partnerships.
College faculty train, and periodically monitor, high school teachers who offer advanced, challenging, college level classes. Studentsí grades, and whether they receive college credit, reflect a semester or yearís work, rather than just their final exam.
Federal funding to expand CIS and PSEO is a good idea. But so is treating them fairly.
Joe Nathan, a former public school teacher, now directs the Center for School Change, Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota.
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