Is Advanced Placement only good for top students?

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The advanced placement program (AP) is becoming more and more popular, with 25% of high school graduates taking at least one AP examination, elite colleges expecting to see applicants’ transcripts full of the courses, and politicians demanding that more and more high schools offer them.

 

New research on AP reports that claims that the program helps students graduate on time or save money are found generally to have no validity. And research suggests that many of the efforts to push the program into more schools — a push that has been financed with many millions in state and federal funds — may be paying for poorly-prepared students to fail courses they shouldn’t be taking in the first place. Not only is the money being misspent, but that the push may be skewing the decisions of low-income high schools that make adjustments to bring the program in — while being unable to afford improvements in other programs.

 

How do you weigh in with this?

 

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