U.S. News & World Report blogs that a survey of Advanced Placement teachers finds them “highly conflicted” about the program, saying administrators who want to boost school prestige are pushing unqualified students into the college-level courses. The survey by the Fordham Institute reported
Only 29 percent of teachers said that their schools ask for grades or a teacher recommendation before letting a student enroll in an AP class.
Meanwhile, students “appear to be focused on AP for utilitarian or pragmatic reasons, not intellectual reasons,” according to most teachers, who said that “more students want their college applications to look better.” As a result of these attitudes among students and school leaders, “too many students overestimate their abilities and are in over their heads” in AP courses, 56 percent of teachers said. More than 6 in 10 said that putting some limits on who can enroll would improve the AP program.
If George Leef and others are correct that not every student needs to go on to college, then the corollary must be that not every student should be expected to do college level work, especially while they’re still in high school. Unfortunately, the trend of credential inflation which makes a bachelors’ degree a prerequisite for many basic entry-level jobs is making AP coursework on the transcript an expectation to get into some of those bachelors’ programs.
The AP instructors’ fears of mandated course dilution are well-founded, and College Board will have to hold the line against administrators — the teachers are not going to be able to do it alone.
