I have absolutely zero personal experience with APUSH, but one of the faculty in our school has written items for the test, and I will say this individual runs a pretty rigorous AP class. We also happen to have two history faculty with content area doctorates (i.e., not administrative EdDs), including this faculty member (who taught at the university level prior to taking this position).
I'm going to guess that instruction is highly variable, depending on the school. But in our building, which is not even a comprehensive, hence far from being an exceptionally high-achieving high school, it can be pretty respectable.
I would agree. I actually think APUSH and world history were both very well taught at my kids’ school. However, to actually complete all the assigned reading requirements, hand in formalized notes, research, timed essays, etc, required ridiculous amounts of time and effort which are truly unreasonable for most high schoolers with a normal class schedule. According to my DD, the majority of her classmates found ways to skirt the requirements, using resources from the internet or their classmates. The number of kids in the class was also unreasonable, which made “seminar,” a weekly occurrence intended to be an in-depth discussion, kind of a farce and also easily gamed. So yes, it is possible to learn a great deal, but it is also possible to do minimal shoddy work and still gain the AP designation (I can’t say what percentage of kids like this earned 5s, but our history department prides itself on the percentages of 5s their students receive, so it must be sort of ok).
