Summer's over

[hlg22]

This may get me flamed, but... I wonder if some of the seeming expansion of summer work for AP classes is due to the fact that more and more kids are taking the classes.
In the 90s, AP classes were typically restricted to just the top few percentage of students. Now it's not at all unusual to have a school where 50% of the kids take an AP class. If it's just the very, very top students taking the classes, the teachers are only dealing with students who are coming into the class very prepared - they have the background knowledge, basic information, and academic speed to quickly move through the material, even without having to do a lot of pre-work over the summer.
When half the school is taking a class, though, the teachers need to be sure that all of the students are actually prepared to hit the ground running, so they have to give review work to make sure they don't loose the needed skills and enhancement work to make sure the students know the basic background info that might be required for that class.

That's a fair point. When I was in HS in the mid-90s, the honors and AP program at my public school was very selective. You had to test in and it was not unusual for 150+ kids to take the test for a class that had 30 spots. I took a bunch of AP classes and I don't recall having summer work for any class other than AP English, but we did have a fair amount for that - reading about 8 books plus some related writing assignments.

By the time my sister got to the same HS four years later, they opened up honors and AP to anyone who wanted to take it...which of course resulted in dumbing down the classes and fewer kids actually capable of taking and passing the AP exams. I'll have to ask her whether they had summer work.

Personally, I took AP classes not because I wanted to get college credit but because they were the only classes that were actually challenging...the "college prep" classes at my well regarded HS were a joke, I don't think they prepared anyone for anything other than maybe junior college.

 

[A_Princess'_Daddy]

This may get me flamed, but... I wonder if some of the seeming expansion of summer work for AP classes is due to the fact that more and more kids are taking the classes.
In the 90s, AP classes were typically restricted to just the top few percentage of students. Now it's not at all unusual to have a school where 50% of the kids take an AP class. If it's just the very, very top students taking the classes, the teachers are only dealing with students who are coming into the class very prepared - they have the background knowledge, basic information, and academic speed to quickly move through the material, even without having to do a lot of pre-work over the summer.
When half the school is taking a class, though, the teachers need to be sure that all of the students are actually prepared to hit the ground running, so they have to give review work to make sure they don't loose the needed skills and enhancement work to make sure the students know the basic background info that might be required for that class.

I bet you are correct, as that makes perfect sense. In my high school, there were about 100 of us per grade and, even though it was private and "selective," only about 25 of us were allowed into each AP subject (usually two sections of 12 students each, as I recall). I'm guessing that has changed now, given the competitive thrust of high schools and the relative currency of the AP/IB system, but the need to create a common floor could explain the seemingly steep increase in summer work.

 

[Lorelei Lee]

AP data is often used to evaluate and rank high schools. http://www.usnews.com/education/hig...alculated-the-2013-best-high-schools-rankings

Some school encourage enrollment in AP to boost such rankings.

 

[sam_gordon]

AP data is often used to evaluate and rank high schools. http://www.usnews.com/education/hig...alculated-the-2013-best-high-schools-rankings

Some school encourage enrollment in AP to boost such rankings.

But wouldn't more AP(IB) enrollment cause the ranking to suffer? If I read the article right, they looked at the enrollment AND how many passing grades were achieved on the AP test. Wouldn't a bigger enrollment mean a smaller percentage of passing grades?

 

[Hrhpd]

I'm not sure about other states, but we do have restrictions on practice time. The "loophole" that allows summer practices is that conditioning, weight training, speed drills, basically any practice that doesn't involve gearing up or running plays, isn't technically practice. And officially those "off season workouts" aren't supposed to be mandatory - mandatory practices can't start until early Aug - but everyone knows they are. That might not be true in a district where football is less competitive, but it is just how it is here. But even within official practice rules, there's almost a month of summer commitment required because the season starts before the school year. I do think there's a solid basis for it - it would be tough for a kid who hadn't done the weights and conditioning to throw on pads in August, at the hottest time of year, after a summer on the couch or at the beach, and be game-ready 2 weeks later.

When it comes to AP courses, I do think dual enrollment is the better deal when it is available and I'm encouraging DD to go that route (though right now she's more interested in the IB program). Rather than college-level work in a high school atmosphere it shows the student can handle college level work and a college atmosphere. And from what I understand from friends with older students than mine, transfer credits from our community college are more widely accepted/recognized than AP credits so dual enrollment is the better option for getting a head start on higher education.

That is the way it is here with football too. We have restrictions on when actual practice can happen. DS is at "football camp" right now. It is an "optional" camp with a tuition that is offered by the high school coach. Because it is an optional for pay activity, it is allowed. But everybody knows that if you want to compete for a spot on varsity, you better have your butt in that camp. And since it is a camp, they are doing full drills. This week is helmet only, but next week is full gear. However, we don't have the humidity here that other places have, so not so dangerous. They end in July with a day of 7 on 7 scrimmages (again optional - yeah right) with a bunch of other schools that are having "optional" camp. Then the teams have to take a couple week break (but the weight room is always open, cough cough) and official team practice starts in August.

Another way schools differ: Our dual enrollment is with the local 4 year university. However, the classes are actually taught at the high school, not on campus. But they do show up on the University transcript as regular university classes. The classes follow the same syllabus as the on-campus class, although they throw in a little extra so that the class can also double as an AP class. So, when you register for an AP class in our school, you can also choose if you want to register at the University for course credit. Older DS was able to finish off all his non-major requirements, allowing him to double major.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Interesting Series on AP Classes

(from boston.com, links in OP)

 

[Hrhpd]

It's interesting, and certainly valid. It also appears to be the norm at many high schools now, I just don't understand why it's necessary beyond essentially being an arms race to see how much more each school can pack into the year. When I was in high school, we started after Labor Day and took the AP classes in early May, so we had even less time than the kids today who are starting school in August, and yet we all did well in the class and on the test without loads of summer work.

I'm not disputing that the summer work now exists, or even that there has been some fundamental change to the system to make it more important, I just fail to see why a test that my classmates and I were able to take without summer work 20 years ago and score 5s on now requires a panoply of summer work, in addition to the extra class time picked up by starting school earlier in the summer, but for the obvious fact that there has been "test prep creep" that is causing schools to accelerate their preparations, which in turn require other schools to slide up to match them, creating the aforementioned "arms race".

I'm also in no way disputing the value of the AP/IB system. Despite the fact that my university did not give transcript credit for my AP test results, the classes themselves in high school were amongst my most enjoyed precisely because they did delve into subjects more deeply than other classes. We just managed to do it without a summer filled with worksheets.

C'est la vie...

ETA, I should also add that, for all I know, my prep school may have been the anomaly back in the mid-1990s and perhaps the high school students elsewhere were living summers packed with completing AP worksheets. Honestly, I lived a pretty sheltered life in high school and have no idea what was going on at other schools, and now, since my children are still in early elementary school, I haven't studied what is going on in our local high school, nor what is now going on back at my own high school. So maybe we were different, even then, but regardless, it worked for us then and so I still think the test prep creep is overwrought. My high school DID do the summers packed with athletic training (two a days for football, debate camps, student council retreats, etc.), just no major homework assignments for specific classes, beyond the school-wide reading list.

I am guessing that in those 20 years, in our more is better crazed world, the content tested on has evolved to an amount that it can no longer fit into a traditional semester. 20 years is a long time in education and AP content has grown and evolved since then.

 

[Hrhpd]

This may get me flamed, but... I wonder if some of the seeming expansion of summer work for AP classes is due to the fact that more and more kids are taking the classes.
In the 90s, AP classes were typically restricted to just the top few percentage of students. Now it's not at all unusual to have a school where 50% of the kids take an AP class. If it's just the very, very top students taking the classes, the teachers are only dealing with students who are coming into the class very prepared - they have the background knowledge, basic information, and academic speed to quickly move through the material, even without having to do a lot of pre-work over the summer.
When half the school is taking a class, though, the teachers need to be sure that all of the students are actually prepared to hit the ground running, so they have to give review work to make sure they don't loose the needed skills and enhancement work to make sure the students know the basic background info that might be required for that class.

Again, I think that is school dependent and varies across the country. In our high school, most of our AP classes require faculty approval to enroll. You cannot just decide to take AP Chem and sign up for it. You have to have a certain GPA in the prereqs and have your teacher sign off that you are ready for the class before you are allowed to enroll. So, for AP chem, you would have needed to take honors chem with an A or B and have teacher approval before you could register for AP Chem.

 

[Southernmiss]

I am guessing that in those 20 years, in our more is better crazed world, the content tested on has evolved to an amount that it can no longer fit into a traditional semester. 20 years is a long time in education and AP content has grown and evolved since then.

Again, I think that is school dependent and varies across the country. In our high school, most of our AP classes require faculty approval to enroll. You cannot just decide to take AP Chem and sign up for it. You have to have a certain GPA in the prereqs and have your teacher sign off that you are ready for the class before you are allowed to enroll. So, for AP chem, you would have needed to take honors chem with an A or B and have teacher approval before you could register for AP Chem.

I agree with both of these. Also, there's now 20 years more history to cover.

I know at our high school not everyone takes APs and in a class of 350 students there are at a max 40 who take each AP course. It may be watered down some with students who shouldn't be there, but in our experiece, not much.

DS petitioned the principal his junior year to have a zero hour class offered to make up for the AP class offered during the period when the football, band and cheer kids were in their particular activity. The principal said find a teacher willing to teach at 630 am and 20 students willing to take the course at that hour and you're on. And they did. As we watched them graduate last year, most were honors if not high honors students as one would expect.

 

[Colleen27]

But wouldn't more AP(IB) enrollment cause the ranking to suffer? If I read the article right, they looked at the enrollment AND how many passing grades were achieved on the AP test. Wouldn't a bigger enrollment mean a smaller percentage of passing grades?

Only if those kids aren't passing. More work, more practice, more passing grades = better school ranking. And I do think in that way the increased AP enrollment may well be part of the reason for the bigger workload. When I was in school we needed a faculty reference in the content area of the AP class in order to take it. I couldn't take AP Calculus because even though I was college-prep math track it was my weakest subject and I genuinely struggled to keep a decent grade in pre-calc. Now it is more like college classes - any student who passed the pre-reqs, even if it was with a C or D, can attempt the AP class. And the school offers a lot of support to help with the tests, including after school tutoring and test-prep.

 

[A_Princess'_Daddy]

I am guessing that in those 20 years, in our more is better crazed world, the content tested on has evolved to an amount that it can no longer fit into a traditional semester. 20 years is a long time in education and AP content has grown and evolved since then.

I'm sure this is a component, and if I interpret correctly you aren't agreeing that "more is better" but merely acknowledging its role in our world, but assessment systems have also evolved dramatically in the past 20 years (e.g. dynamic content testing, whereby the testing system can more accurately norm a student's knowledge by assessing correct/incorrect answers and adjusting the next question's complexity based upon the correctness of the prior response) so it's not enough to simply say the tests are more complex. I also have not seen any evidence that the granularity of today's AP tests is any more significant than it was 20 years ago, so I don't think that additional content can be the root cause.

I think a dilution of the academic pool, coupled with the arms race to show that "we're doing more, so we must be better" is the root cause of this escalation in pre-work.

 

[sam_gordon]

Only if those kids aren't passing. More work, more practice, more passing grades = better school ranking. And I do think in that way the increased AP enrollment may well be part of the reason for the bigger workload. When I was in school we needed a faculty reference in the content area of the AP class in order to take it. I couldn't take AP Calculus because even though I was college-prep math track it was my weakest subject and I genuinely struggled to keep a decent grade in pre-calc. Now it is more like college classes - any student who passed the pre-reqs, even if it was with a C or D, can attempt the AP class. And the school offers a lot of support to help with the tests, including after school tutoring and test-prep.

Agreed to the bolded. Here's what I'm thinking though...

Let's say the top 20 students get into AP. Then the school 'opens up' so now 30 gets get into AP. Granted, a few of those extra 10 might pass the test, but is it enough to help the percentage? After all, if the kids were "brighter" (and I use that term because I can't think of a better one right now), they'd be in the top 20 already.

So let's say 15/20 used to pass. That's 75%. Let's say you get 2/10 of the additional kids to pass. Now you're at 17/30... 56%. You'd need to get 8/10 of the "new" kids to pass the test to help your percentage.

 

[Colleen27]

Agreed to the bolded. Here's what I'm thinking though...

Let's say the top 20 students get into AP. Then the school 'opens up' so now 30 gets get into AP. Granted, a few of those extra 10 might pass the test, but is it enough to help the percentage? After all, if the kids were "brighter" (and I use that term because I can't think of a better one right now), they'd be in the top 20 already.

So let's say 15/20 used to pass. That's 75%. Let's say you get 2/10 of the additional kids to pass. Now you're at 17/30... 56%. You'd need to get 8/10 of the "new" kids to pass the test to help your percentage.

Ah, but there's another angle to the numbers... Say by opening up the classes you're able to justify 8 AP offerings instead of the 4 that were offered when it was more limited. The kids who would have been excluded before likely only take one or two in their areas of particular interest, but the kids who are all-around academically talented/focused might now pass 6 AP tests instead of 3. Plus the increased offerings make the school look better just by virtue of having more (a big selling point if you're in an area with school choice), and fuller classes "protect" the program from being looked upon as a niche offering when it comes time for budget cuts.

 

[okeydokey]

AP data is often used to evaluate and rank high schools. http://www.usnews.com/education/hig...alculated-the-2013-best-high-schools-rankings

Some school encourage enrollment in AP to boost such rankings.

Schools also get extra funding if they have so many people in AP classes. That's why they push it here instead of dual enrollment classes. My kids will mainly focus on dual enrollment their Junior and Senior years.

 

[A_Princess'_Daddy]

Ah, but there's another angle to the numbers... Say by opening up the classes you're able to justify 8 AP offerings instead of the 4 that were offered when it was more limited. The kids who would have been excluded before likely only take one or two in their areas of particular interest, but the kids who are all-around academically talented/focused might now pass 6 AP tests instead of 3. Plus the increased offerings make the school look better just by virtue of having more (a big selling point if you're in an area with school choice), and fuller classes "protect" the program from being looked upon as a niche offering when it comes time for budget cuts.

This makes a lot of sense, as well. I did a little research this afternoon while flying home from a business trip and the increase in the number of available AP classes is staggering! There are some fairly esoteric AP options out there that I am almost certain didn't exist when I was in high school.

 

[sbtrfly74]

Im sorry I didnt read the entire thread but mainly the first and last page.

But, I decided for my DD not to do AP mainly for the fact the I was afraid that it would tank her GPA. Which is what happened to my Dnephew taking all AP so I really didnt want to look into it and didnt want her to struggle but to succeed.

So she has been taking all Honors instead and is a junior and has about a 3.8 GPA this year and will be doing duel enrollment next year which is taking college English in place of high school English and skip going to high school all together and be enrolled in college full time at 50% the cost for the first year.

I was worried about ranking since I know thats important (one reason I declined AP, though I know they are weighted more). But she will completely loose her ranking for not going her senior year and that colleges look highly on duel enrollment over ranking...not sure im sold on that one yet but have been meaning to contact a local university to verify. She was top 10% then did drop to about 20%.

My take either way is Id rather her go to college next year instead of HS due to all the bs drama and gets a head start. If the year after she gets a scholarship then great but if not we will continue with an AA through community college until transfer.

Lastly I think I read recently that Maryland is ranked the best schools? All I can say is OMG really? Worst schools ever, they will hide HNA scores to look better. I hate MD schools! Ive had to deal with them for 15 years and they are horrible. I moved to NC for 4mths and I thought I was dreaming, they offered my DD the world on a silver platter on services she needed and when I moved back to MD they immediately took them away again. Sorry to ramble.