GUEST POST: Advanced Placement: A low-key engine of school renewal
With Congress in recess we are giving you a break from our usual Hill-related content and sharing a great read from our friends Chester E. Finn, Jr. & Andrew E. Scanlan at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
The glum news that average SAT scores dropped again this year finds the College Board again trying to
explain that the fall is due to more and more diverse students taking these
tests. That may be partly true but it doesn’t solve the problem of under
preparedness for what follow high school. Nor is SAT necessarily the best gauge
to use. While its scores signal that a student is (or isn’t) ready to enter
college, the Advanced Placement (AP) program, also run by the College Board, helps
students master college-level courses before
they even get there.
Six decades old and now engaging
nearly three million students who sit for some five million exams every year,
AP has quietly worked its way into the offerings of most U.S. public and
private high schools, the policies of many states and districts, the admissions
and placement decisions of hundreds of universities, the educational
aspirations of countless families, and the academic programs of innumerable
college students. As we explore in our new book, Learning in the Fast Lane: The Past, Present and Future of
Advanced Placement, preparing these
young people to succeed on the tests (scored from 1 to 5, with 3 or better
deemed “qualifying”) is a major objective for teachers, students, and families,
as well as education leaders who view a robust AP program as a key component of
a topflight school system.
District and school leaders have plenty of reasons to offer
AP and encourage more young people to take its courses. But what makes AP stand
out from all the other reforms, interventions, and silver bullets, including such
competitors as dual credit? We count four big advantages in embracing AP.
First, its successful
completion yields tangible benefits for the young people who participate,
particularly those who also score at least a 3 on the exams. Achieving such a
“qualifying score” gives youngsters a good shot at arriving in college with
credit already established and/or waiving out of boring freshmen
courses—possibly earning their degrees faster and cheaper. Participants gain
valuable study skills and may get a welcome boost in their admissions odds,
perhaps including better colleges than they would otherwise have applied to. Its
courses are also an antidote to senior-year boredom, a source of stimulation
and rigor for high-achieving students, and a source of confidence that yes, one
is indeed “college material.”
Second, many teachers
find valuable colleagueship, professional development, and intellectual
stimulation from a nationwide AP network that includes peers in thousands of
schools as well as university professors. They get together in June to score
the exams; they take part in week-long summer workshops; and their
participation in lively virtual networks offers myriad ways to compare notes,
pick up tips, borrow lesson plans, and get suggestions for additional research
by students who want to dig deeper. It’s not unusual to hear teachers say that
an AP workshop rejuvenated and enhanced their work as educators and some go
back again and again.
Third, Advanced
Placement is private, run by the non-profit,
non-partisan College Board and thus largely immune to political infighting.
It’s not imposed by the federal or state government, and many superintendents
and principals have come to view it as an effective tool for improving
education at the system and building levels—a toning up effect on entire high
schools that, if well-orchestrated, may trigger improvements in “feeder” middle
schools as well. Besides better serving smart kids and conferring additional
curricular choices, it contributes to raising academic standards and rigor;
attracting and retaining eager, knowledgeable teachers; and developing
curricula and assessments that can be compared across districts and states. Above
all, AP has become a serious player in the national effort to enhance
educational opportunities—and a real booster rocket for disadvantaged
youngsters.
Fourth, Advanced
Placement has always included an external exam that’s anonymously scored and it
has successfully maintained a “gold standard” of rigor even as it comes closer
than anything else to a high-quality national curriculum at the high-school
level. Its expectations are the same in rural Kansas
as in the suburbs of Boston. Indeed, the most
oft-heard response of politicians is, “We want more of it in more schools and
we want more kids to participate in it.” Yet politicians have essentially no
role in what it teaches, how it tests, or who scores what.
We heard time and time again from
superintendents and principals that a well-functioning AP program can be an
engine of high-school improvement that raises expectations among staff,
students, and families. But that doesn’t make it easy to maintain a robust AP
program in one’s school or district. Much else
needs to be aligned, perhaps above all a culture of inclusion, rigor, and
academic seriousness, plus stable, committed leadership and eager,
well-prepared teachers. Even then, it’s far easier to offer the courses than to
help kids prepare to ace the May exams—a challenge that’s intensified if middle
schools are lacking and youngsters’ outside lives are fraught.
Going big on AP also poses
resource trade-offs and priority issues for schools and districts. Should they
instead do more for low achievers? Upgrade their CTE offerings rather than
trying to boost more kids into college? Focus on dual credit instead? Can they
muster the human resources to do AP well, including teacher buy-in and
committed school leadership? Mandates from the superintendent set the wheels in
motion but it takes plenty more to ensure swift and responsive movement on the
ground.
Fortunately, experienced outside
organizations can help implant a successful AP program, particularly in high
schools serving poor and minority youngsters. Groups such as the National Math
and Science Initiative, Equal Opportunity Schools, and MassInsight Education
have excellent track records working with school leaders, developing teachers,
raising expectations, encouraging more kids to join in, and helping them to
succeed. Often supported by a mix of private philanthropy and district
resources, they can be great allies—as evidenced in several case studies of AP
expansion efforts that we describe in the book.
Advanced
Placement is more than college-level courses during high school: It can
equalize opportunities and narrow the “excellence gap”; strengthen the
country’s human capital and future competitiveness; and create upward mobility
for able young people from disadvantaged circumstances while challenging
high-ability youngsters from every sort of background. That’s a rare success story in the annals of education reform—and we need all of those we can get.
Finn is a distinguished senior fellow and president emeritus at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Scanlan is a research and policy associate at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.