Federal

AP Teachers Divided Over Push to Open Classes to All

By Stephen Sawchuk — April 29, 2009 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Teachers of Advanced Placement courses almost uniformly praise the program’s continued adherence to a rigorous, high-quality curriculum and assessments, even as it expands to more schools and students.

But they are divided on whether schools should offer AP classes to all interested students, or only to those who demonstrate an ability to master the material, a new survey released last month concludes.

The survey results sound a faint but distinct warning for the program, said a vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, the Washington-based think tank that commissioned the survey.

“Teachers seem torn,” said Michael J. Petrilli. “They see the value of getting more students into AP, and to a large extent so far that [expansion] has gone well. But they do have some worries that the quality of students isn’t what it used to be, and that that will have a deleterious effect on what they’re able to do in these courses.”

Sponsored by the New York City-based College Board, the Advanced Placement program allows students who take a demanding exam on their AP coursework and receive a score of 3 or better on a five-point scale to earn college credit. The program has grown rapidly over the past decade.

Trevor Packer, the College Board’s vice president for the AP program, said the board welcomed the survey, especially as federal lawmakers prepare to renew a push for higher standards and improved assessments.

“It’s asking all the right questions about how we preserve quality while expanding access,” Mr. Packer said, “and it sets the pace for questions we need to continue to ask.”

The nationally representative survey, conducted last October by the Farkas Duffett Research Group, reflects the paper and online polling of 1,024 public school teachers of one or more AP courses. Its margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Screening Students?

According to the survey, 52 percent of teachers favored allowing only students who meet pre-set criteria—such as teacher approval or a certain grade point average—to take AP classes. A sizable minority, 38 percent, said the classes should be open to all interested students. Overall, 63 percent of teachers said they supported some form of screening to ensure that students who take Advanced Placement classes are adequately prepared.

That position stands in contrast to many schools’ policies for admitting students into AP courses. Nearly 70 percent of teachers reported that their schools have an open-enrollment policy. That figure, Mr. Packer said, is roughly in line with the College Board’s internal surveys of AP teachers.

Teachers’ support of screening mechanisms for AP courses suggests some concern that the level of instruction offered in those classes might fall as fewer well-prepared students enroll in them, the Fordham Institute’s Mr. Petrilli said.

“For a long time, [AP] was the one place where the high-performing could be challenged and learn at a quick pace,” he said.

Mr. Packer acknowledged that concern, but he added that screening mechanisms must be carefully designed or they could block access by minority and disadvantaged students.

“Too often in the past, students who have had the potential to succeed in AP were denied access,” he said. “To deny a student the chance to exercise the skills they need to succeed in college—none of us want that on our hands.”

However, schools’ commitment to access should not be confused with a desire for prestige, Mr. Packer said, and the survey provides some evidence of that motivation. Most of the teachers surveyed attributed the program’s expansion, in part, to students’ seeking to make college-application portfolios more competitive, and to schools’ trying to boost their position in national rankings that rely on the ratio of AP courses taken as a proxy for school quality.

Quality-Control Steps

But both teachers and Mr. Petrilli praised the College Board’s efforts to ensure program quality during its expansion and as a new crop of teachers begins to lead the courses.

One such measure, begun in 2006, requires new teachers to submit their syllabuses and lesson plans for review by college professors before they receive the College Board’s approval to offer AP classes.

Although the board doesn’t perform site visits to ensure teachers’ instruction matches those plans, it does plan to conduct more in-depth analyses of the correlation between teachers’ materials and their students’ scores, Mr. Packer said.

In July 2010, the College Board will provide a direct, online feed to teachers with detailed breakdowns of how students scored on the tests. Once the direct-feed system is in place, Mr. Packer said, “we will be well positioned for the next step of the dialogue with schools.”

The AP program, meanwhile, is likely to receive additional attention as federal policymakers ramp up efforts to promote higher standards for education under the recently enacted economic-stimulus package.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, for instance, has indicated that putting more-rigorous standards and assessments in place will be a key criterion for qualifying for part of the “Race to the Top” fund, a $5 billion pot of money under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that will be awarded at his discretion.

The Fordham Institute survey suggests that Advanced Placement could be a model on that front: Ninety percent of teachers responding reported that AP tests were well aligned to the curriculum, in contrast to their generally lackluster support for other forms of standardized testing.

There are also signs that Congress could include additional incentives for schools to adopt AP courses when it reauthorizes the No Child Left Behind Act.

In 2007, for instance, education leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives proposed allowing schools whose students earned passing scores on AP exams to earn credit toward the schools’ annual standardized-testing goals under the NCLB law.

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the May 13, 2009 edition of Education Week as AP Teachers Divided Over Push to Open Classes to All

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Artificial Intelligence Webinar
Teaching Students to Use Artificial Intelligence Ethically
Ready to embrace AI in your classroom? Join our master class to learn how to use AI as a tool for learning, not a replacement.
Content provided by Solution Tree
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Teaching Webinar
Empowering Students Using Computational Thinking Skills
Empower your students with computational thinking. Learn how to integrate these skills into your teaching and boost student engagement.
Content provided by Project Lead The Way
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
IT Infrastructure & Management Webinar
The Reality of Change: How Embracing and Planning for Change Can Shape Your Edtech Strategy
Promethean edtech experts delve into the reality of tech change and explore how embracing and planning for it can be your most powerful strategy for maximizing ROI.
Content provided by Promethean

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Federal Republicans Preview Their Education Priorities in a Second Trump Term
In a hearing, Republicans called for more civics education and expressed concerns over "critical race theory" in schools.
5 min read
Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., Chair of the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, speaks during a hearing on antisemitism in K-12 public schools, Wednesday, May 8, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., chair of the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, speaks during a hearing on antisemitism in K-12 public schools on May 8, 2024, in Washington. At a hearing on Dec. 4, 2024, the subcommittee discussed civics and government curriculum.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Federal Opinion The Trump Administration Should 'Devolve the Ed Dept.'s Responsibilities to the States'
After six years helming the House ed. committee, U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx cuts loose on high points and frustrations of her tenure.
8 min read
The United States Capitol building as a bookcase filled with red, white, and blue policy books in a Washington DC landscape.
Luca D'Urbino for Education Week
Federal How Trump Could Roll Back Access to Free School Lunches
Project 2025 and a GOP budget proposal call for axing a federal rule that allows public schools to serve free meals to all students.
5 min read
Cafeteria workers serve student lunches at Firebaugh High School in Lynwood, Calif. on Wednesday, April 3, 2024. Demand for school lunches has increased after California guaranteed free meals to all students regardless of their family's income.
Cafeteria workers serve lunches at Firebaugh High School in Lynwood, Calif., on Wednesday, April 3, 2024. Demand for school lunches has increased after California guaranteed free meals to all students regardless of their family's income. A federal school lunch provision that makes it easier for public schools to provide universal free meals may be a target for elimination in President-elect Donald Trump's upcoming term if some conservative activists and lawmakers get their way.
Richard Vogel/AP
Federal A Bill to Kill the Education Department Is Already Filed. Here's What It Says
The bill represents another attempt at a long-term Republican goal.
6 min read
People walk outside the U.S Capitol building in Washington, June 9, 2022.
People walk outside the U.S Capitol building in Washington, June 9, 2022. Legislation has been introduced in the Senate to abolish the Department of Education.
Patrick Semansky/AP