Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Why High School Rankings are Meaningless: article

AMEN.


This. YES.

I'm particularly smitten by this particular observation:


This is absolutely true-- and it is a serious problem for pretty much every parent who reads/posts on a board like this one. When AP = "differentiation" for gifted students, sucking mediocre students INTO those courses dilutes that differentiation and risks making it meaningless drivel or little more than test coaching.

My DD's AP Physics B experience is a prime example of what happens when a course refuses to 'dumb down' for those kids who don't actually belong in the AP course. The year started with over 20 students in that course. My DD is one of only 6 students finishing the year, and one of only two of them earning A's in the process.

Most non-gifted high school students have no business in these courses-- if, that is, they are as they are intended/purported to be. The pace and the expectations are simply beyond them.

To say that is to open a Pandora's box. If it is true, and if AP courses represent college level work, then "most non-gifted high school students have no business" trying to get a bachelor's degree, either, except that many employers use the BA effectively as a high school diploma.

What HK said and then some.

Personally the stuff about packing classes full of 'students' not even remotely qualified to be there appears to equally apply to college these days.

I do see this as a difference between high school now and high school as it was. I went to a privileged public high school, and AP Physics and AP Calc were available to me. I did not take them, because I knew I would find them very hard (and I wasn't interested). Not many students did--these were known to be very difficult, hard-core classes for serious math/science nerds. I also was not encouraged or pressured to take them, because everyone knew my skills lay elsewhere. In fact, I took only two AP classes (English and History). I still got into very selective colleges. IIRC, I didn't even take the AP History exam. (I took the English one because it allowed me to place out of freshman English.)

Today, I assume that I would have HAD to take a whole slew of AP classes in everything, and that they would have been dumbed down to suit me and other less capable students.

There is a HUGE difference between an 11th grader and a college freshman that has nothing to do with age or maturity.

The largest single difference is the expectation of course loads.

My daughter has eight classes this semester. Yes, 8.

She was truly freaked out last December by the concept that in just 18 months "all of my classes will be like Physics and Lit." Well, yes-- but the reality is that they won't all 'count' the same way that the goofy credit system in high school places these things. (Every semester of every class is a "half Carnegie unit" which is just stupid.)

Okay-- so looking at her course load in terms of a quarter-system college schedule:

Physics w/ Lab-- 4 credit hours
English Literature-- 3-4 credit hours
Social Science course-- 3 credit hours
US History-- 3 credit hours
Foreign language-- 3-4 credit hours
fluffy elective 1-- 1-3 hours
Non-fluffy elective 2-- 2-3 hours

Anyone else seeing what I'm saying here?

NO advisor would sign off on this kind of schedule for a freshman student, and precious few even for a senior student who needed the courses to graduate. In fact, it's nearly double a full course load for a college student.

The top four, there, are all AP/Honors. When I pointed out to DD that just those four would be considered a "full" course load for a college student, she looked at me like I had three heads. "Really? I thought that college was supposed to be HARD," she said. LOL.

The thing is, most high school students cannot cope (and really, should not be able to) with a full course load as high schools define it (6 courses or more).... AND the addition of AP coursework. In any college setting, 6 'regular' classes (that is, not including something like a 1-2hr lab section or seminar class meeting once weekly) is an overload.

The load balancing needed to manage AP in high school is a matter of time management and working LONGER (not necessarily "harder") whereas the balancing needed by college students is often something quite different in terms of the task complexity required in the work itself.

Of course AP doesn't do much to prepare the average high schooler. Instead, those classes may simply encourage such students to imagine that working longer hours = better grades, and it doesn't. At least not in college it doesn't.


It's also worth noting that most college faculty would have argued the point about AP being truly equal to college level work even as long as 20 years ago. They'd have been right, incidentally, and it certainly hasn't gotten better in the interim. We're very careful about which AP courses our DD chooses, and much depends on the teachers in charge of them. She's not taking them because they are college "level" but because they are at least college work-load and intensity, and because while her classmates are in survival mode, she learns rapidly enough to actually tolerate the pace very well and be authentically learning the material that most of her classmates are struggling to remember well enough to pass assessments. I realize that sounds elitist/dismissive, and I'm not really suggesting that. This 'mile-wide-and-inch-deep' problem is well-documented re: AP and Val and I have dicussed it at length. AP is a good fit in some ways for HG+ kids, and bad in others, but at least it allows her to frame deeper autodidactic learning. Frankly, with good instruction, AP calculus would be on the table for her, since her largest problem with math has always been the pacing of instruction.

Can we agree that she is not-not-not "most" kids, however?

I see her classmates (mostly bright-to-MG) and they are ragged in the face of the demands in those same classes.

Huh?

Colleges count harder, more time-consuming coursework in a weighted manner that most high schools do not. That load of courses (well, 7 last term and 8 this) adds up to just 7.0 semester "credits" on the year. In a quarter-based college setting, that same load would generate as much as 70 quarter hours over that same period of time (assuming that the student could do it, which most couldn't), and often undergraduates need only 130 such quarter hours (properly distributed of course) to complete a degree. Of course, maybe it's just me that has a problem with "career exploration" being given equal billing and crediting with AP physics. LOL.

Therefore, the time pressure invoked by a full high school schedule that includes 2-3 AP courses is not comparable to college to begin with. Good thing, actually, but that isn't the real point. The real point is that to accommodate that reality, AP courses aren't collegiate in content/level.

They do a lot of hand-waving about this, but ultimately, the way that high school get around it is to do more work in those classes (thus keeping a clear conscience re: 'rigor') but in a way that is still feasible for the most intrepid students of more modest ability. That is, those students willing to go without sleep to get through the sheer workload of it all will be rewarded (generally speaking) with passing grades in those courses.

But this is why colleges have a certain disdain for AP as a marker of high quality. Fortitude, certainly. Great proxy for THAT.

I think that another part of the burden on some high school students is the arms race to get into IVY LEAGUE SCHOOLS!!!! (My understanding is that not all high school students get worked so hard)

Certainly, the private high schools that are on the college-prep track around here are all focusing on that idea. Our students get into IVY LEAGUE SCHOOLS!! is always touted over and over again at prospective student open houses (often by parents who resemble the wide-mouthed frog). It wouldn't surprise me if this is also the case at the high-achieving public high schools like Brooklyn Tech, etc.

Personally, I think it's insane and abusive, but that's just me.

Hk- I follow what you're saying.

I personally didn't take AP classes, because I was interested only in science AP classes; and I would still need to take these in college. (I did test out of Freshman math and English though.)

One thought (which I won't claim to be an expert on) is the educational system in England. I studied abroad during "silly electives" in intro type classes. The kids in class with me were freshman already knowing quite a lot in their area of expertise. This was due to the last 2 years of high school focusing on 4 subjects. It was quite eye opening to me. Even though those classes were my electives and their core classes; I couldn't believe how far ahead they were and how much I needed to teach myself to be in par with the class (able to participate). It also hurt my GPA.

I do think that AP classes would be able to be more meaningful and not watered down if less classes were required in high school, so the students could focus on the class with sufficient attention. Also, the goal (which I don't see changing anytime) of a school is not how many AP classes or students in AP classes it has. It should be selective and really the kids who deserve to be in it and can understand and do the work in a reasonable time get to be offered the class.

I guess I am slowly realizing all the things the school(s) tell me they have in place for gt kids may not really work as explained.