At the same time, I was personally moved by this statement in the article
... a junior with average grades and test scores, is failing her AP U.S. history class; she said she is overwhelmed by the rapid pace and volume of material she needs to memorize. But she said she intends to stick it out because the class is teaching her to manage her time, take good notes and develop perseverance.
Not to say that she has ever believed one only needs to enroll or show up to be successful, but this may be her antelope... the thing which motivates her to run (reference to Stephanie Tolan's
Is It A Cheetah?). While believing that she may need this opportunity, not every average student may benefit. So much depends upon one's mindset.
The practice of rationing seats and having too few seats may be an area to focus on in crafting a solution: Successful businesses are those which respond to changing consumer demand for goods and services. It seems schools could do this as well. There are many AP courses, and students may be interested in and well prepared for taking several. While scheduling logistics may preclude a student from taking every AP they may be prepared for, this ought to be the exception as supply of class sections could increase to meet demand.
I don't
necessarily disagree-- but what, precisely, is she CONTRIBUTING to the learning environment for, say, my daughter who is seated next to her?
That's the problem, here, with open access. It
necessarily waters down class discussion to the lowest common denominator, and at the same time, makes the learning environment increasingly worthless to those who NEED the higher level, deeper, richer content. Kids of higher LOG, speaking plainly.
Saw this in action in both of my DD's AP courses-- the spring term was FAR better than the fall-- because a lot of the students who simply couldn't keep up or couldn't meet expectations... were gone by then.
The kids in class with this youngster are reaping something, too. They are reaping remedial discussions, a lack of interaction with a classmate that has NOTHING to contribute to discussions about reading material... etc.
