From talking to public school teachers, reading mainstream media coverage and keeping my e-fingers on the pulse of the blogosphere, it isn’t hard to conclude that the average Advanced Placement teacher has a fair amount of contempt for the audit. Take a look at this thread on teachers.net titled “FINISHED MY AP AUDIT!”:
I have completed by [sic] AP audit - 11 pages! Breathing a sigh of relief and snarling at College Board for 20 hours of useless documentation.
Sometimes forums and blogs present people as a little angrier than they really are because, well, for lots of people that attitude is more fun (and the anonymity of the internet relieves them from the accountability it warrants). We’ll give the original poster (OP) a free pass here - he/she’s just frustrated from having been forced to work 20 extra hours.
The first reply tells him it’s time to celebrate. The second asks if the OP used the ‘Syllabus Wizard’ or sent in the documents himself, to which OP replies:
Joe - I sent it as an attached Word document. They haven’t approved it yet. Our AP US teacher said on her list serv that about 50% aren’t being approved! One sent in by a PhD with 22 years college teaching experience was rejected by College Board! It’s causing quite a stir. I put in 20 hours ( 11 pages) on mine. I told my principal if they reject it he can get someone else to teach the course - not worth the trouble to me! LOL.
Free pass revoked, OP - and here’s why.
If a syllabus doesn’t meet the requirements for an AP course, it shouldn’t be approved. Whereas ~50% is a very high rejection rate that probably represents a small, insignificant sample size or is an utter fabrication, who cares? Making sure talented, motivated high school students have true access to the advanced material they believe they’re getting matters far more than a blow to a teacher’s pride.
OP points out that a syllabus submitted “by a PhD with 22 years college teaching experience” was rejected and “it’s causing quite a stir.” I have no idea how any of these elements add up to or guarantee proficiency. Anyone who has witnessed a dissertation defense on a topic as inane as Gender Equity in 18th-Century Siberian Basketweaving knows that a PhD doesn’t guarantee competence in anything beyond a highly-specific focus of study. But apparently to the Original Poster, a PhD and 22 years of teaching guarantee a good syllabus.
I could refer the OP to more than a few college professors with 30+ years of experience who are utterly incompetent at teaching. They’re just awful. Most of them are very good scholars, but they are, at best, indifferent teachers. But such is the entitlement our OP feels. Things like his own time/effort matter more than the year his students will spend under the illusion that they’re in a college-level class.
The OP is quite comfortable with using arbitrary, non-content measurements to analyze the project, though. He points out that he spent 20 hours/11 pages on this - a remarkable feat if he’d taught the course in the past and it was, indeed, a college-level course. Other than formatting and adding in some additional information as required, the process should take a few hours. Why only a few? Because it already should have been done anyway. Quality teachers plan their courses in detail.
This line is so rotten that I need to quote it again:
I told my principal if they reject it he can get someone else to teach the course - not worth the trouble to me! LOL.
The LOL’s on you, OP. If your syllabus is rejected, the principal should get someone else to teach the course. He/she should get a competent teacher who has a command of the material and its pedagogy well enough to write a few pages about what the class will contain.
Teachers who think the Advanced Placement audit is a hassle that gobbles their Saturdays and insults their professionalism need to regain perspective on the task at hand (n.b. If you’re a department head or administrator, take the initiative and re-center your staff). An Advanced Placement course provides students with a seminal element of their higher education; introductory courses are not to be wasted because they are the foundation on which greater studies are built.
Ideally, AP teachers present a college-level course and prepare their students to receive a 3 or higher on the exam. Most of these students will receive college credit or test out of its 101-equivalent. Because of this, an AP class needs to meet or exceed what those students would encounter at their future college because that is part of the opportunity cost of the AP curriculum. Can you as a teacher say with confidence that your class is as good as its average 101 counterpart? Does your district demand that level of proficiency? Do you?
If you do, then you realize the task with which you are charged. The College Board’s audit is in place to ensure that students aren’t cheated out of the high-quality experience they deserve. Compassion for students and a recognition of their seriousness of purpose demand that AP teachers treat their courses as a college-level class.
AP teachers need to stop whining, gird their loins and get their courses in shape - they owe it to their students. I wish the OP’s attitude was less common than it seems to be.
UPDATE at 4/21/07, 6.14pm:
Teachers aren’t surprised or offended in Arkansas - they’re used to quality control:
Beth Carnes, the Advanced Placement coordinator for the Rogers School District, said Arkansas is a step ahead of other states because of a law that was enacted about four years ago.
That law requires Advanced Placement teachers to attend a summer institute for recertification every five years to continue teaching those courses. The law also requires Arkansas high schools to offer Advanced Placement courses in the four core subject areas …
… At Bentonville High School where 19 such courses are offered, Principal Steve Jacoby said the audit “helps make it more exemplary. It helps the integrity of Advanced Placement.”
At least some schools get it.
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Ok. Late comment, but funny stuff. I just finished mine, after about 15 hours of work. Now granted, included in this 15 hours is a lot of distraction, a lot of conversation, half of the articles available on the Chicago Tribune website, and a barbecue celebrating the end of state testing.
Thankfully, the principal freed the AP teachers from proctoring duties during testing the past two days to work on the syllabus, or as compensation for the time already spent.
I was looking forward to doing it, and I’m glad it’s done (mine ended up being 6 pages, btw).
But no complaints here. It’s a welcome challenge and evaluation for me.
You’re about as off-base as the original poster. While the length of time is not in itself an indicator that the process is flawed, it is also not an indicator that the poster was a slep trying to scam ETS. Maybe the poster’s point is, even having ALREADY done the prep work on syllabus creation, the process took 20 hours. Maybe the cynicism felt by teachers (and, full disclosure, I’m one of them) has nothing to do with wanting to do poorly for our kids. Maybe we just think the powers-that-be are competent in providing good experiences to the kids. Maybe we think that the audit has little to do with ensuring good courses and everything to do with preserving the “brand value” of the AP name.
It might not be so, but I don’t see why ETS should get a free pass but a teacher should be assumed to be posting because he’s/she’s no good. I would say, let’s look at the scores the teacher achieves in his/her course. I think that if a teacher consistently provides 4s and 5s, ETS should probably shut up and concede that he/she knows what he/she is doing. And if providing the 4s or 5s aren’t enough to “capture the experience” of a college-level class, that’s an indictment of the test, not the teachers.
AP certification is a bureaucratic hoop through which thousands of teachers will have to jump so that ETS can protect its cash cow. It might incidentally lead to better classes, but I suspect the correlation is going to be weak.
Mr. Gilroy,
As for the teacher referenced in my post, his attitude and logic are the real problems here. I don’t think anyone truly cares how long it takes one to come up with a final draft for the purposes of the audit, though I see whining about such a thing as reflecting poorly on the profession and likely an indication that he is an ill-prepared teacher. I may be wrong - he might just be a great teacher who is a wildly immature complainer.
I agree with your points and they are right on for responsible teachers in decent schools. I assume you realize how far Hun is from the AP mean, though. The audit must be obnoxious for teachers in schools like yours, but it is absolutely necessary for many lower-performing [and average] public schools who throw the AP label around quite liberally. These schools look great to parents and rowdy Board/community members who want to see the best for their kids, but it simply cheats the students by not offering true AP courses. Those students enter college woefully underprepared - though many of them don’t realize it until they are overwhelmed [or, at the least, disheartened] by real college-level work.
You mention test results as proof of an instructor’s competence. You’re right. The problem is that many schools offer courses with the AP name but don’t require that students take the exam. So, we don’t necessarily have the data to show 4s, 5s and competence vs. 1s, 2s and buffoonery - hence the audit to monitor quality.
Of all the dubious statements in this article, let’s take just one:
“The College Board’s audit is in place to ensure that students aren’t cheated out of the high-quality experience they deserve.”
One might well consider that the College Board’s audit is in place in an attempt to ensure the continued flow of cash into the AP program. Colleges are increasingly looking askance at AP courses since the scores the College Board reports (3 being “qualified”) seem wildly inflated. But of course if the College Board actually assigned appropriate scores to examinations, revenue would drop substantially as students with little chance of earning a 3 or higher opted out.
Much better to have teachers produce documents of a style not suitable for use with students and have them do it not during the summer as they’re preparing new courses, but at the end of the school year as they’re preparing current students for the currently looming exams. And for teachers currently engaged in teaching CS for the first time, have them prepare the syllabus using a case study that will be used NEXT year, not this year, right as they’re dealing with the inevitably unexpected quirks of THIS year’s case study. A model of education planning overall.
I’m not one for conspiracy theories - especially when the evidence points in another direction. There is nothing dubious about the statement you quoted. I believe sincerely that this is a real attempt to regain control over a program that has had fast, explosive growth and few restraints. Are there other forces at play? I think we would agree that there are.
I think the “AP-as-capitalist-pigs” angle is misguided, but you’re right about the continued cash flow. This is, in part, a measure to ensure the survival of the AP program. The AP brand has been diluted in a way that could carry serious consequences for its economic viability if left unchecked. It is reasonable to think that without any quality control measures being put in place, in 10 years Advanced Placement would mean little to nothing. Consequently, the College Board would lose a large component of its total services and other dominoes would likely fall.
I think they’re meeting the AP’s two most pressing needs with this audit. Will it be effective? I don’t know yet.
I’d say that your reply engages in the straw man argument. Exaggerate someone’s point and knock the exaggeration down. I don’t argue for a conspiracy or for “capitalist pigs” — merely that your “belief” in the College Board’s motivation is dubious and an alternative theory is perhaps more plausible. I’m not aware of the evidence that points in the direction you claim for the College Board’s motivation. But there are many examples of the College Board making decisions based on revenue-enhancement at the expense of students: AP calculus students taking one AP exam being charged for two if they want two scores reported, for example. And we all know — not suspect — that the College Board deliberately tries to avoid public scrutiny and values its own reputation a bit too highly. Take for example the way recent SATs have not been released for general scrutiny — but only to high school students who took the exam and who pay extra for the “answer service”. When one discovers a serious error — as happened within the past year - almost no one would argue that the College Board’s response was timely. I don’t think it’s necessary to imagine a conspiracy of any kind to see that the policies they’ve adopted tend to limit the possibility of their errors being discovered.
In the past, legislation such as New York’s truth in testing law took care of obvious problems like this. Now, all too many people seem simply to accept whatever the College Board says at face value.
The following links will clear things up a bit:
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/courses/teachers_corner/46361.html
https://apcourseaudit.epiconline.org/
It is clear that the College Board is trying to standardize courses that use the AP label so that more of them are, in practice, a college level class.
There are two issues here - the class and the test. The audit deals with the class/curriculum. The College Board, by requiring this audit, is looking to cure the curricular ills of the fluff classes that use the AP name but do not resemble the level of coursework that parents, students and colleges have come to expect. By correcting [or eliminating, I imagine] these flawed AP offerings, the College Board is addressing a segment whose students tend not to take the test anyway. Will students in more rigorous classes be more apt to take the exam after the audit? I believe they probably will, so the Board will see some bump in test-takers [though as one of those links shows, the numbers are exploding anyway] and, in turn, see greater revenue.
I think the College Board was hit with a dose of reality about the too-lofty reputation to which you refer. I think they saw the disconnect between their theory and the reality of Advanced Placement in schools nationwide; they’re right to be concerned. This audit is the first step - and it is indeed a baby step - toward bridging that gap, hopefully for the better for all parties involved.
They’ve got to strengthen the core of the AP program before they work out any of the kinks with the test. I am not confident that they’ve handled the proliferation of AP classes and the resulting test-takers with efficiency. They simply didn’t have a scalable system in place and they’re paying the price now.
I desperately want to see the testing process [many of the points you raise] addressed and a requirement that all AP students must take the exam. Only after such a comprehensive reform can the AP have the place in secondary education that it professes to have or, as those of us who recognize the reality of the current state of AP believe, hopes to have.
I see the audit as the first step in this process. It may be designed to patch up some of the wounds you mention, but I sincerely hope not - and I may be wrong.
Update: I thought that about 75% of all AP students took the exam; Jay Mathews, whose articles I trust in full, stated last fall that it’s 74.1%, so I wasn’t too far off:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/12/AR2006091200709_pf.html
I see the audit as getting a handle on those classes that generate the bulk of the 25% of non-testers.
A very interesting convesation.
But points about the AP program’s efficacy and profit motve aside, I think it is fair to question the competence of the process itself. At my school, a high-achieving one where 80% of the 700+ AP tests taken per year yield a 3 or better- we were resigned to the process, but frustrated with how long it took College Board to figure out what they were doing. The number of fits and starts and delays in implementing the audit were ridiculous and frustrating.
Even more ludicrous are the results. We are beginning to get multiple reports of situations in which identical syllabi, submitted (as required) by different teachers of the same course who were using it, have been simultaneously accepted and rejected. To me, this calls into questions the credibility of the entire process. Given how long it took them to get going, one would think College Board would have had a better handle on this process. It would be laughable if it weren’t so disconcerting.
After teaching AP U.S. HISTOTY at my High School in South Carolina, would the FACT that my 20 year average is over 90% that make 3 or better. Basically the same students take AP English, and I find that GREAT English teachers are my best ally.. and yet these same students make about 55% on the AP ENGLISH. Why should I have to GIVE my info to AP CENTRAL???
I have been a reader for a number of years, and sadly this year we leave San Antonio for Louisville… a sad thing.
The test should be MANDATORY… or else it is NOT AP… that simple!!!!!!!!!!! It is in this state. Guidance is who should be LOOKED at.
I am curious about any studies of students taking and passing AP exams witout taking the AP course. I have a 9th grade son who has already scored a 27 on the ACT (85 perceentile) without any courses at the high school except Algebra I in 8th grade. A separate test, I know, but clearly not related to HS factoids.
How many of these AP tests rely on internal logic, the thought process, and vocabulary vs straight, memorized factoids out of the course?
College Board may see that AP courses are endangered.As American employment increasingly turns to service positions, community colleges are becoming as important — if not more important — than universities. One and two year programs that train in technical and service occupations are highly desirable in states hoping to keep unemployment rates down and job growth up. Here in North Carolina the state university system is forging new partnerships with the commnity colleges for transfer of courses for credit. Special programs by the state also creates extensive joint programs between high schools and the commmuity colleges (middle colleges). Students are taking US History, Criminology, Psychology, Environmental Science, etc that automatically give both high school and college credit. This is definitely a growing trend. Why should a student take an AP course and MAYBE receive college credit when the community college is a sure thing? This is especially true for those students who are uncertain about a four year degree but are going the one or two year route.
College Board is struggling to maintain their status for obvious reasons. There is no huge conspiracy, simply the reading of new trends.
I’m a relative newcomer to AP Physics, only taught it for a few years. The syllabus requirement is a mild annoyance and potentially useful to me. I don’t have a history of sky-high scores that some of the other posters here do. I am in a situation with a school that does not require a year of general physics before AP, and it isn’t a double-period. Consequently I have to spend a lot of time to catch up students before the exam. Two years ago my course evaluations said speed up, do fewer labs; this year my evaluations said, do more labs. Still trying to find the “sweet spot.”
If experienced teachers are getting high scores on the exam, well then, they should have been left alone (even though I probably wouldn’t have qualified in my opinion).
AP curriculum makes you concentrate so much on problem solving and work so fast to finish that we often forget to have some fun with physics along the way and inspire the students to want to take the subject. Every year I debate whether or recommend we drop AP and go to Honors. I just don’t know if the AP designation is worth the price we pay.
The College Board could’ve put in a performance/results-based component. It makes sense, but the outcry would’ve made for an even larger mess, in my opinion [teachers/admins pointing fingers at their kids, etc.]. I would like to see some performance tracking in AP teaching, though.
I have four decades of teaching high school physics, three decades of teaching AP physics and a Ph.D. in physics. My thesis was on NMR. Had I foreseen that it would lead to MRI, I might not need my retirement plan so desperately.
As concerns teaching physics, the only things the foregoing qualify me for are taking attendance and cleaning the board.
I feel no insult in being required to submit a syllabus. I have known too many physics teachers who had neither sufficient knowledge of physics nor sufficient pedagogic skills to pass muster. I have known some who didn’t know syllabus from syllabub. I have also known many fine physics teachers. I would hope to be more nearly among the latter than the former.
Further, I have no ill-feeling about being reqired to re-submit an amended syllabus after review. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the thermodynamics.
I shall work assiduously to build a satisfactory syllabus which meets the further requirements as suggested by the reviewers.
But I am puzzled. Do rotational kinematics, rotational dynamics including torque and angular momentum, gravitation and celestial mechanics, and the total energy of orbiting bodies suggest that there is sufficient coverage of circular motion, or do the words “circular motion” have to apppear in the syllabus. Do static equilibrim, the relation between force, mass, and acceleration and the analyses of action and reaction of forces in the context of impulse and momentum, and energy considerations in elastic and inelastic collisions suffice to cover Newton’s Laws or must the words “Newton’s Laws of Motion.” appear in the syllabus. Do physics teachers do the reviewing? I will certainly include the rquired terms in the revised syllabus, but I will always wonder. In my universe, these topics surely could not be covered without the classes knowing where they came from.
Sincerely,
Rex D. Walker
Rex,
Thanks for your comment - it’s rare that a teacher is so candid about their experience.
I am still confused by the vitriol that continues to seep from teachers regarding the syllabus and audit. I think the request for curricular review is quite sensible and not all that difficult.
Judging by the Google searches that send people to my site, you’re not the only one to have specific concerns about syllabus content. I think the format of the syllabus [such details vs. only “circular motion,” for example] will be more clear after this initial round of audits.
In pre-audit times my students had achieved 3’s and 4’s. Just like a kid I hated the idea of the audit before I did it. Then I bit the bullet and did the work. Surprise! My course is better than it was before, and my students love having such a crystal-clear plan for the year. What is more, successful passage of the audit is one more nice thing to put on the c.v.