Some teachers say students who come from more educated backgrounds can help the new A.P. students. During an advanced calculus class at Freedom High one morning, the teacher, Amanda Kraemer, circulated among student groups of four working together to solve quadratic equations. Most of them, she said, did not have college-educated parents. But peer grouping, she said, “gets kids who come in with a lot of skills to solidify them by helping other students.”
Ms. Kraemer’s approach seems to work: Last spring, more than 90 percent of her students received a passing score on the most rigorous A.P. calculus exam.
Students who have not mastered quadratic equations should not be in any calculus class, much less an "advanced" one. The students who have mastered precalculus should be taught calculus in calculus class, not pressed into tutoring algebra. It is difficult to believe that a calculus class where many students have not mastered quadratic equations has an AP Calculus BC pass rate of 90 percent, unless the group work extended to the exam itself.
