What has been your recent experience?

Back in the Stone Age when I attended high school, the standards were relatively clear. Nowadays and into the future, I simply can't tell. I do know that the "written" standards have been and continue to creep upwards. Based on recent communication with the head of secondary math for our district, I know that DS (class of 2021) will need four math credits in high school, Calculus AB, Calculus BC and two of the three less common courses (Statistics, Linear Algebra and Differential Equations). For DD (class of 2021), it will be Algebra II, Pre-calculus, Calculus AB and either Calculus BC or Statistics. More generally, our district has moved from three high school math credits to four with one of them now required to be beyond the Algebra I, Algebra II and Geometry trio such as Pre-calculus or statistics. Is this the trend elsewhere as well?

I am more baffled by the current situation with the science courses. Apparently, the GT science sequences (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Environmental Science) use college textbooks. The students commonly take the AP counterpart after the GT version although it is possible to take certain AP science courses as a freshman. This all seem redundant to me. If you are capable of mastering a subject through a college text, why would you need to repeat the subject under the auspices of the AP umbrella? Am I missing something? What is the difference?

For Literature/Language Arts, the GT sequence for Juniors and Seniors is AP Language Arts and AP Literature respectively. For Histories (World & U.S.) and Government, you can simply take the AP versions instead during the Freshman through Junior years.

In general, prerequisites for AP now seems to vary depending on the subject matter. Furthermore, it seems fairly common for Freshmen and Sophomores to have some AP courses. How common is this trend? Does this have the effect of diluting these courses?

Students taking a course utilizing a college text prior to taking the related AP may be a way for schools to increase performance on AP exams, a boost to high school ratings under some ranking methodologies. Students taking AP courses as high school Freshmen and Sophomores may be a way to increase access to AP courses for those with the ability/readiness to take these courses prior to Junior or Senior year.

This still varies a lot depending on school district and state. My district in general doesn't allow AP courses as a freshman, and only offers one AP for sophomores.

My general understanding was that one either took Calculus AB OR Calculus BC, but that may depend on how it is taught. The way it's taught at DS's school taking AB, then BC would be repeating a lot of information. Calculus BC covers more material but my experience is it is taught as a either or option. But I could see how it could be intentionally taught that way - and possibly is at your school, but that isn't how it was taught when I was in H.S. nor as DS's High School.

My son is in the fastest normal math track. He took Geometry in 8th grade, Algebra II last year, is taking Pre-Calculus, will hopefully take BC Calc next year, and then will either take AB Statistics or AB Computer Science his senior year. Our school district does not teach any class beyond BC Calculus, the other math option computer science and statistics do not require calculus. The one or two kids that are off this track either tack courses at the local university or just don't take a full 4 years of math. In my state only 2 years of math taken IN H.S. is required, and passing Algebra.

What my district does is the "normal" track is Physical Science for 9th grade, Biology for 10th grade. (That is all that is required to graduate), Chemistry for 11th grade and then maybe one AP or class like Marine Biology, AP Environmental Science, or another AP if you did well enough. For the honors kids they take Biology 9th grade, Chemistry (10th grade), and then for junior & senior year have a choice between AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Physics I, all of witch require the regular or honors Biology & Chemistry course. The honors versions of these classes use what look like college texts.

As for Science, keep in mind that the AP Classes have changed. As of this year AP Physics B has changed drastically, to a 2 year sequence. Our district never taught AP Physics C (with calculus) and are now only offering AP Physics 1 (Mechanics w/ out Calculus) even though they have more than enough students who take AP Calculus junior year to fill a full year of Calculus based Physics.

As for Literature... if you are in the honors track. The school turns AP Literature into a unofficial 2-year course. Honors Sophomore English is American Lit and those students take AP Literature their junior year and do the British Literature in junior year. Then then offer AP Language as a senior class. For social students AP U.S. History is offered sophomore year, unlike every other school I know even in our district who offers in junior year. AP World or AP Eur are optional junior courses. All freshman are required to take a freshman social studies course.

In our district unless one is VERY advanced in math and in ready for Calculus one can't take an AP until sophomore year. In sophmore year you can only take AP History, and A.P. Music Theory if you have space in your schedule. But by junior year most top 'honors' students take 4 full AP Classes.

In my high school, Calculus AB and BC were two sequential courses. It was excruciatingly slow.

I suppose it may in fact boost the AP scores of those who needed repetition in the first place.

I don't see why you would need two years to cover what is essentially three semesters of calculus. In my day, the two courses were sequential with Calculus AB taking one semester whereas Calculus BC took two semesters. In my kids' district today, Calculus AB is a required prerequisite for Calculus BC and the courses takes two semesters each. Calculus AB preps your for the AP Calculus AB exam while Calculus BC preps you to take the AP Calculus BC exam. Even if Calculus AB were not a required prerequisite for Calculus BC, it may be difficult to jump right to multi-variable calculus without any prior background. Calculus BC covers vector valued functions, partial derivatives, directional derivatives, multiple integrals, line & surface integrals and Green's & Stokes' Theorems.

I did see in our science sequence that there is actually AP Physics A, AP Physics B and AP Physics C and that you don't take all three. Our district also requires World History before American History and frankly I think that is a better approach.

My high school covered AB & BC in three semesters so it was tolerable. In contrast, my kids' district allotting four semesters seem excessive.

Our district is algebra 2, Trig/CalculusA, Calculus BC. Senior year is a multivariable Calculus. Magnet 8th graders can take Algebra 2 at the high school.

I am making the assumption that pre-calculus actually includes a fair amount of beginning Calculus. The last few chapters of DS's book is essentially beginning Calculus.

According to the AP Site.. AB is equivalent to one semester of calculus and BC is equivalent to the first two semesters. The AP does not tell a school how to implement this, just what is going to be on the test. A H.S. can obviously teach it where the first semester is done one year, and the second the next but the AP Board doesn't require it to be done that way.

I'm not happy with the way they do AP US in my school. The districts other H.S. do not do it this way, I am not sure why they started doing it this way. But I think they keep up because of tradition, and that it lines of with taking American Literature in 10th grade. But other high schools in my district, has kids take AP Language as a sophomore, and AP US & 'honors' American Lit as a junior.

Check to see how they lines up. According to the AP page, the official names of the Physics tests are now AP Physics I, AP Physics II, AP Physics C(Mechanics), AP Physics C(Electricity and Magnetism). Physics I & II are supposed to be one year cources. The two Physics C tests can be taken the same year, but are different tests so can be taught in one year or two.

One thing to keep in mind that I only understood after reading a bit on the history of the AP Test. AP Courses are implemented differently by different schools. College board just created a set of tests (AP tests) that if you passes gave you college credit. There is no requirement you have every taken an official course. As the program grew in popularity, they added more details in terms of what a course should cover, and teaching guides.

Part of the confusion is that there does not appear to be a uniform standard. Our GT Pre-Calculus course is supposed to be a hodge-podge that includes function theory (with trigonometric functions as one example), some analytic geometry topics, some "advanced" algebra topics, and some linear algebra topics. Our AP Calculus BC course is focused on multi-variable calculus. Of course, things can change within the next few years as well. I know there was a recent reshuffling of topics for Algebra I in our district.

I think in some ways Pre-Calculus is the course that varies the most because it is often a hodge-podge such that two courses with this same name may not even touch on the same topics. In my day, Pre-calculus was only one semester so that the second semester was AP Calculus AB. You are correct that passing the AP Calculus BC exam meant that you could skip the first two semesters of college calculus. I think that my old high school's practice of stretching it out to three semesters made it accessible to most of the students in those classes. Regarding AP Physic C, I think our district offers the option of taking just Mechanics in one year or both in one year. I finally see why some seniors graduate with a crazy number of AP credits.

I'm just now really starting to look into the current state of AP courses as my ds is just now entering high school. I'm looking through the lens of an *old* parent who took AP courses in high school years ago (I won't post *which* years because I want to keep that info private lol!). As a student years ago, I saw AP as something that you had to be highly qualified to take, it was a bit of an honor to be able to take them, it looked good on your college resume, and it translated into real college credit for me which was very nice.

As a parent reading about the courses today, it seems to offer some of what I got out of it, but it also seems to be all about a company creating as many tests as possible, presumably to maximize profits. I have no issue with that, but how it plays out in school is really confusing to me at this point!

When I was a student there was only one "AP Calculus" course, which from what I can tell is equivalent to what is tested on "Calculus BC". There was only one physics course, "AP Physics", which was one semester of calculus-based mechanics and one semester of calculus-based e&m. I took a physics course prior to AP Physics (non-calculus-based), but it wasn't really necessary and I can't quite really grasp how you turn non-calculus-based physics into a college-level course - the only people I can think of who would take it are… well I can't think of any! If you're a person who is interested in the sciences, your college curriculum would require physics with a calculus base, and if you're not interested in the sciences… are you really going to sign up to take a physics course? Please know I'm not knocking physics here - I'm a physicist lol!

Anyway, it's all a little frustrating to me at this point but I don't really have a good understanding of the options yet. It appears that our school district tries to push kids into Calculus AB and then add on Calculus BC for some of the kids - but I see no reason why my ds shouldn't be able to take that full year of Calculus that I believe Calculus BC is intended to be. Having to sit through one semester's worth of college-level calculus spread out over two semesters seems ridiculous for most gifted kids, even for most high-average kids who are good at math.


polarbear

Our districts are K-8, and 9-12. My daughter is a 7th grader in Geometry and her teacher at curriculum night mentioned that the class didn't have to follow common core like the others including Accelerated Algebra 1. the multivariable calculus can be taken for college credit at U of illinois ($300 fee)

That's true. I would add that passing APs does not guarantee credit at the elite colleges. In my day, you have to have at least four scores of 4 or 5 in certain combinations (ex.: Calculus BC, Physics, English Lit. and U.S. History) of APs to get sophomore standing and there were no in between options.

I am quite confused as well. My kids are only 6th graders, but certain decisions made by the end of 7th grade for 8th grade can affect the high school science sequence and some others as well. I have actually been reading multiple source documents from our district, some of which aren't readily accessible for the casually inquiring parent. It's not that I am special, only that I know where to dig and am taking the time to do so.

In high school, I also took GT Physics followed by AP Physics and the difference was the math and the frequency/sophistication of lab experiments. There are now several combinations of choices for Physics alone. There are also more choices beyond the traditional Biology, Chemistry, and Physics trio. As for Calculus, I am realizing that it may partly be an issue of the breadth and depth of coverage as well.

We are K-5, 6-8, and 9-12. As a result of Common Core, topic coverage has been revamped for Algebra I and Geometry but so far has not touched the Pre-calculus or Calculus curriculum. I restricted my original post to the AP options as it gets even more confusing when we look at the other options provided through dual enrollment, early enrollment and simultaneous Associate Degree/High School Diploma programs.

Well now I know you are probably older than I am, unless your school just didn't offer the options and you didn't know. When I was in high school we had the AB vs. BC Calculus options. And I ended up taking neither, graduated a year early and still skipped the first quarter of Calculus because my "pre calculus class" was really a semester of trigonometry and a semester of beginning calculus. I took a the non Calculus bases Physics AP course, what was supposed to be my junior year. I didn't take very many AP's... I just skipped a year of H.S.

Well, an almost quote from on the vice principals of DS's High School. 'Don't worry your kids will get a chance to take AP science courses, we now offer AP Environmental Science Course and it has no prerequisites beyond passing the basic required science sequence. (earth science & biology)' While I have no problems with AP Environmental Science and it sounds like a great class, it seems there is less and less emphasis is getting most kids to take Chemistry and Physics.

Some districts around here let a kid go directly into the AP science course, but our district makes the kid take the honors course first (exception - this year they changed the stance on Physics since the AP Physics tests changed). So my current 11th grader took Honors Bio in 9th, Chemistry in the summer before 10th, AP Bio in 10th and now AP Physics in 11th. The school insists that you take Bio in 9th, Chem in 10th and Physics in 11th (all with lab) - that's why she took Chem over the summer (couldn't fit in two sciences plus her two foreign languages).

Take a look at the percentages of 5s in various AP exams, and there is a wide range. Also interesting to note that when some AP exams have changed, rates of 5s have changed (Bio went from 20% 5s to single digit 5s - 6.5% this year). Not sure what it means.

And 4s and 5s can help with credit in college. Eldest entered school with 24 credits from APs. Would be nice if she would finish in three years, but she decided to double major instead.

That's part of the impetus behind my original post. A part of me suspects that the students are not necessarily getting smarter or better educated, just that there is massive dilution. On the other hand, it is possible that colleges may not look at AP Environmental Science in quite the same way as AP Chemistry or AP Physics.

That aspect is confusing in our district as well. Sometimes you can go right to the AP course but not others. The 20% 5s seems overly high but the 6.5% 5s seems overly low.

I think this is true, and one can verify this using the AP Credit Policy Search.

Thanks for the link, Bostonian. It is interesting to see that my undergrad institution no longer considers L Englsih iterature/Language Arts or Chemistry even for placement, much less as part of the credits to graduate a year early. I wonder if that is because they are not selective enough and too many students get 5s on those tests.

Yes.

Honestly, I'm not thrilled that AP Physics B (which my DD took and did well in) is now a two year course. Oh please.

The pacing is now undoubtedly completely unsuitable for gifties. It was about right when DD took it (without any preparation other than an honors physical science course taken years earlier which had about a month of classical mechanics topics and very little math).

As for "who takes this stuff," well, we didn't care about COLLEGE credit for the course, but we did care about GPA weighting, and the course is far, far more rigorous/better designed than the alternatives that DD's school had on offer. She hadn't had calculus, so AP Physics C was out. Frankly, that course was a nightmare in terms of pacing before the redesign, but it was great for the tiny handful of HG kids in it. The pacing was perfect. For them, I mean. LOL.

She needed the challenge of the pacing and high level content, but without the expectation of calculus, and yes-- she'll probably take a sophomore level calculus-based mechanics course in college, but so be it.

There is also the consideration that classes like freshman chemistry, physics, biology, and calculus are cash cows. There is one professor paid decently and lots of teaching assistants paid very little. Colleges do not want lots of students placing out of their introductory classes and going straight to their smaller, more expensive (for the schools) classes.

Yes, two years for AP Physics without calculus does boggle the mind! Back in the day, there was just one AP Physics class and exam. I think all my classmates were taking Calculus BC simultaneously so the teacher had freedom to teach how he wanted, which was actually a mixture. Of course, I also don't remember any of my AP teachers teaching to the exams.

Mechanics was a first semester course used to weed out all the freshmen who mistakenly thought they wanted to be engineers. The herd had thinned considerably by the time Electricity/Magnetism rolled around in second semester. Interestingly, I think that Electricity/Magnetism was less vigorous than Mechanics and therefore would have been less effective for weeding purposes. I actually stayed a whole year before switching majors but it was a shock going from a high school AP Physics course to a freshman engineering course on Mechanics.

Cynical but likely correct although interestingly you can still use Biology and Physics C as part of the credits to graduate a year early as long as you earned 5s.

I wonder to what extent an interdisciplinary subject such as environmental science can be studied at the college level without the prerequisites of college-level biology, chemistry, physics, and perhaps even economics.

Our HS math sequence for gifted kids is honors Alg II/Trig (9th), Honors pre-Calc (10th), BC Calc (11th), and then Calc III (you need a 4 or higher on BC exam), AP stats, or AP Computer Science for senior year- overall, 3 years of math, so you could also skip senior year.

Our gifted science curriculum is Honors Bio (9th), Honors Chem (10th), Honors Physics (11th), and then usually one AP science senior year. Students can also double up or take a summer course to fit in more AP. Honestly, I like the way this is done. Honors Bio was a very general course and not nearly as rigorous for my dd as AP Bio, so I didn't feel like it was a lot of overlap. Maybe it depends on what they do in middle school. Dd majored in bio in college and felt like she went in with a really deep understanding; her AP course was rigorous. I guess she could have taken AP Bio without the first course, but this worked well for her. The last two years, AP bio has had the lowest or second-lowest percentage of 5s for all test takers, and I wonder if that is because more freshmen are taking it.

History curriculum has AP Human Geo, Honors World History or AP World (considered the most challenging) for 9th, then AP Euro (10th), APUSH (11th), and AP micro/macro and/or APGov and AP Comparative Pol senior year. For my dd who did liberal arts in college, she found these better/higher level than the English courses, and they really developed her reading/writing skills. Again, though, AP World has had the lowest or second lowest (changing with bio) percentage of 5s in the past two years, and I also anecdotally hear of many more freshmen taking it.

English is honors 9th and 10th and then the two AP in 11th and 12th. We found these relatively watered down, and the results on both are usually relatively low as far as percentage of 5s. I think too many kids are taking them.

At our local HS, a student can take AP Computer Science as a freshamn with no pre-reqs except math (drop out rate is high), AP Human Geo or World History, AP Art History, or any course in which you are sufficiently advanced (for ex, one could take AP stats in 9th if the student had taken AlgII/Trig in 8th, or could take AP French if he or she had already taken outside French).

I don't see my son's AP World being diluted - it's a tough class and there is the expectation of an hour a night of reading/note-taking. It's very rigorous. I've seen the AP Computer Science syllabus (he's not taking it) and I understand why so many drop out. The only pre-req at our school is Geometry, but if the student has never taken any programming, I think it would be really, really challenging.

Yes, it is different than when I was in school, but honestly, my kids are so much better prepared than I was. The standards are so much higher and the curriculum is pretty tough at MS.

Momtofour, College Board did a major overhaul on the AP Bio exam two years ago. That is why there are fewer 5s - they made the test harder (though my kid thought the MC was really easy, much easier than the old tests).

College Board also changed the foreign language tests a few years back - eldest took French prior to the change and German after (said the tests were very different, as you now need to know about culture, geography, etc.).

So the recent changes in score distributions are likely due to changes in the tests (and kids perhaps not being familiar with the new formats, as there aren't that many practice materials available).

Ah-ha, that makes sense! I was out of the HS loop for a good many years (8-year gap between 2nd and 3rd child) so with #3 just starting HS this year, I've been unaware of changes. Thanks for the update. Hope there will be practice materials if/when he takes it!

What I have noticed is that much of the curriculum in all the major subjects (math, science, reading, language arts, social studies) have been "pushed down". I would venture to say that most elementary students (in decent schools) are covering topics formerly introduced in middle school while most middle school students (in decent schools) are covering topics formerly introduced in high school. This is most obvious in math where first graders get questions like 5 + ? = 14, second graders get to create bar graphs and third graders are asked to calculate the area of a rectangle, etc. In the science area, I actually see a lot of coverage of topics in biology, physics and environmental science between 3rd to 5th grade. I think that by the time students get to high school, they actually have studied quite a bit of biology, chemistry and physics, certainly enough to handle an environmental science course without high school biology, chemistry & physics. In our district, it looks like AP Environmental Science would typically come after GT or Honors courses in Biology, Chemistry & Physics so presumably sufficient preparation for a college level course same as the other AP Science courses.

I definitely see that the curriculum is tougher at the middle schools than back in my day. It just seem to me that a lot of skills/knowledge are pushed down into the lower grades but by the end of high school, there generally isn't a whole lot more to show for it.

It would also be clearer if the curriculum is more uniform so that the same names actually mean the same topics. It wasn't until I had a discussion with DS' algebra teacher that I realized there is such huge variations in just the coverage for Algebra I. Interestingly, I found one document online that references our district's AP Calculus AB course as Calculus I, II and our AP Calculus BC course as Calculus III with the idea that a student could place out of the first three semester of college Calculus whereas AP Calculus BC is traditionally a test on mastery of topics covered during the first two semesters of college calculus.

I wonder if the AP World scores are relatively low because the test takers are predominantly Freshmen or Sophomores rather than Juniors and Seniors.

Simple-- it's a survey course. A mile wide, and an inch deep.

It's no more rigorous than the general education science courses that I used to teach to students from all over the campus.

Then again, that's what you have to bear in mind about most AP coursework-- it's at that Gen Ed level, with a few exceptions.


And I agree, Quantum-- there isn't much to show that spiraling like this actually produces good results in the end. But that's what I think it is-- so it's not exactly that higher level content is being pushed downward. Well, it sort of is, I guess. But without genuine mastery of the foundation, for most students (even bright ones) it just can't stick.


It's like trying to paint a teflon building by racing around it in a clown-car spraying a mixture of paint on the walls at each pass with a firehose mounted on the car. IMO, it seems more effective to prepare the surface well and do it meticulously, but the cartoon clown-car approach is a lot more exciting and certainly LOOKS more impressive.


(You're welcome, btw. I dare anyone not to crack a smile and think of that metaphor when encountering an earnest clow-- er-- educator-administrator espousing the wonders of spiraling pedagogy. )

You know, I am actually conflicted about this spiraling approach. On the one hand, I don't much care for it personally. On the other hand, it has eased the way to acceleration for a certain type of high ability student. In elementary math, the arithmetic (numbers) topics are pretty intuitive/instinctive and can easily be picked up from day-to-day living but some of the elementary algebra, elementary geometry and elementary statistics topics require some minimal exposure at least to terminology and basic principles. I believe that the end-of-year tests several grades up were easy for DS even in 2nd grade partly due to this spiraling approach. DS had not been tutored or taken through any outside curriculum prior to the testing for his first acceleration in 2nd grade.

Why do they call it "spiraling"? I wonder if these people don't know the difference between a spiral and a helix.

Now I could understand calling it "spiraling out of control".

I should have written this a few pages earlier in this thread but looking over the course description it seems like alot of time per subject vs. the old version of 1 year of biology, 1 year of chemistry, 1 year of physics at whatever level was appropriate. What are you trading off if you have to take 2 years of physics and chemistry etc.?

That reminds me of another difference that I have noticed. In my day, you needed 20 credits to graduate. Most normal students taking a standard load would have 24 credits. GT students would automatically have more due to high school credits from middle school. At our local high school, which has alternate day schedule, the standard load would result in 32 credits although you still only need 20 credits to graduate even if there are about that many in total required courses alone. So in answer to Ben leis, I am not sure that you are giving up anything since there is room for more courses.

Precisely our question when we told DD's high school that they were out of their minds if they thought she was going to take "honors" coursework as PREPARATION for the same subject offered as an AP course.

(And in contrast to Quantum's experience, there are only so many periods in the school day, and students are NOT PERMITTED to exceed a certain number of courses per term-- usually 7 or 8-- plus, there are a mandated 24 credits for graduation, and that's the state. So there isn't a lot of wiggle room-- DD graduated with 28 credits, I think, which is VERY high.)


Their answer was fairly interesting, actually-- that this is the "general" recommendation for most students now, but that it "Obviously would be waived for a student like {HK DD}," and the implication was fairly clear-- she is the kind of student who can exell in an AP course without much in the way of handholding or spiraling (as preparation). Most of the students that are "AP" students aren't.

Even so, it was interesting to note the attrition rate in DD's AP coursework-- in the six that she took, the attrition rate was 50% or more. In some of them, it was significantly higher. Physics, for example, started with 22 students, I think? By May, there were only five of them left. IMHO, the five who actually belonged in that class. Of those five, only three of them bothered with the AP exam, but all of them got 5's.

My conclusion based upon that is that in spite of all of the spiraling in the world, AP coursework is still a lot more than most high school students can manage very well. Maybe even fewer of them than in previous generations, in fact.

Is there really room? Again just going off memory, math, english, foreign language, history/economics, science, art/band/chorus was already a full schedule back in the day.

There is room if the schedule is set up for 8 courses per semester as is the case locally. Like you remembered, when I was in high school, the schedule was set up for 6 courses, although you can squeeze in a 7th by skipping a lunch period. Each year 4 spaces are taken up by math, science, english, history/government/economics. There are miscellaneous other requirements like 2 years of a foreign language, one semester each of Health, P.E., Fine Arts, and Technology.

I have my own spiral method for my DD - do AoPS now to keep her in her ZPD but also let her do the lightweight version in a B&M school years later. This way she will still get the HS Maths credits but be able to coast through the HS Maths allowing her more cycles for Physics and Chemistry etc.

Most of the APs available are on the required subjects. My DYS 14 year old DD (a sophomore in HS) is taking 3 APs (physics, chemistry, computer science) and one Post AP (multivariate calculus/linear equations). Two of those are required courses (chemistry and math). The other two count as elective credit.

I don't believe APs are any more difficult to a PG child than regular courses are to a ND child. My dd spends less on homework than her peers (approximately 2 hrs a day).

Doesn't your daughter find the B&M school classes incredibly dull after having mastered the more difficult curriculum?

Yeah-- wow-- my dd would never have been compliant with that. She barely tolerated the honors coursework required of her, and that was theoretically stuff she hadn't seen before.

It does wear thin at times for her but so far so good. Also her teacher gives her some challenging word problems etc while the other kids are working on the regular stuff. We have been very lucky so far...