A teacher takes Post education columnist Jay Mathews to task for his rankings of America's best public schools, which he bases on the number of students within a school who take Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) classes. [See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=23#93.] Tom Schaffer, a former AP teacher in Maryland, has engaged Mathews in a running email conversation on his experience with AP classes, which he believes "should be reserved for just A students and that most B and C students are not ready for such hard work in high school." According to Schaffer, the push to get low- and middle-achieving students into AP or IB classes has not only lowered the standards and atmosphere of those classes, but has also hurt kids who could be learning more in honors or regular classes than by throwing them into deeper educational waters than they're ready for. We think the world of Jay Mathews and his superb journalism, but Mr. Schaffer may have a point. Ranking schools on rates of participation in AP and IB courses seems to put the cart before the horse; wouldn't it be better to raise the standards of classes at every level, rather than just pushing larger numbers of students into AP and IB? And, shouldn't the ultimate distinguishing factor be how well students fare on those tests?
"AP courses not for everyone, educator says," by Jay Mathews, Washington Post, August 5, 2003