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AP, Advanced Placement or Another Political move?
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Written by Carly Littles, Entertainment Editor
AP classes; many of us have them, but do you know why? This year, the school district plans to make the grade by the number of students passing Advance Placement (AP) exams. In previous years, schools were graded on an 800 point criteria, predominately on percentage of students passing the FCAT with a 3 or higher and percentage of students making learning gains. Now, an additional 800 points are being distributed: 300 of these from “accelerated courses”. However, school grades are appointed prior to the release of AP exam scores. Thus, 200 of the accelerated points are gained through participation alone. In simpler words, more than 66% of the AP point criteria is awarded for having a high number of students enrolled in these more difficult classes.
At the beginning of the school year, many students were shocked to see an extra AP class on his or her own schedule (for a good sum of these students never before enrolled in such a class.) Guidance is usually willing to help students out of unwanted classes; not this year. An “I don’t want this” or “I’m not capable of this” is no longer sufficient. The withdrawal of these courses requires a guardian’s complaint. Unfortunately, school hours are often the same as office hours. Thus, all parents can do for a struggling student is provide a pat on the back and a calming, “You’ll just have to try harder.”
So great… students are pushed to apply themselves and are given the opportunity to achieve college credit if they are to pass the AP exam. However, if a student is forcefully pushed into an AP class, given the stress to excel, it is only hurting the learning environment of these classrooms. Some students, mainly freshmen, are ill-equipped for the mental aggravation and lack the proper work ethic to be placed in these classes. A prime example is AP Human Geography. Whether one is an honors or IB student, at the age of fourteen and fifteen, no student should feel the burden of a college level course. Unfortunately, without a parent physically speaking to a guidance counselor, students have no choice but to endure it.
If a student does not wish to be in a class, why is it that they are expected to show such mastery? An unmotivated student can take up valuable class time and resources. Therefore, by removing these students into an easier class should be the obvious and most advantageous course of action, right?
If it has been proved that students learn better and work more efficiently in a class of less students, why is it that students fill the classroom to the maximum capacity? As a result, some students were left without books for the entire first nine weeks while there were students with books that would prefer to take an easy elective. “Last year, there were eight of us in an AP class. Now, I’m struggling to keep up with the other twenty-some because there is no time for individual help,” says one AP student. A class so crowded makes learning nearly impossible, add the factor of not having a book and you’re failing.
What Administration and the School Board fails to understand is that by including AP exam passing ratings to the school grading policy, and thus forcing unwilling students into AP classes, they are endangering a student’s ability to learn. Is that worth gaining the appearance of a strictly academic school?
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