AP In SPS High schools
This article appeared in the Times on Friday, detailing AP in SPS high schools and in particular at Cleveland where previously there was none. From the article:
"Departing Bellevue schools Superintendent Mike Riley is known for increasing AP participation by making it a goal that every student in his district would take at least one AP course. Seattle's new superintendent, Maria Goodloe-Johnson, has said she has the same goal. To reach it, she's working on spreading AP around, giving more students access to the courses.
It will be interesting to see how Hale will keep its position of no separate AP and Honors classes (except, I think, in math) with what Dr. Goodloe-Johnson wants. We have heard here from parents who have written that they wouldn't want Hale because of the lack of AP. Roosevelt's LA department also doesn't offer AP classes. That is being revisited but it is very preliminary.
From the article:
"Garfield High School has the most AP courses in the district — 15. Any student can take them, but they are offered as part of the district's Accelerated Progress Program. Roosevelt has 11, and Ballard plans to offer 16 this school year, although not all of them have been approved by The College Board."
I did write to Emily Heffter, the reporter at the Times who wrote the article, to let her know that there was no APP in high school but the larger number of offerings at Garfield is because it is the feeder school for those students (if they choose to attend). AP at Garfield is open to all students.
One thing that I would love to see the Alliance or some other group step up to do is pay for the AP tests for low-income students. I believe the College Board, which runs AP, does have a reduced fee but it would be helpful if poorer students had to pay $10 or less or nothing in order to reduce barriers in their heads to attempting these courses.
"Departing Bellevue schools Superintendent Mike Riley is known for increasing AP participation by making it a goal that every student in his district would take at least one AP course. Seattle's new superintendent, Maria Goodloe-Johnson, has said she has the same goal. To reach it, she's working on spreading AP around, giving more students access to the courses.
"When I say all kids should take AP, I believe students should not be denied access because it's not taught," Goodloe-Johnson said.
A 2007 University of Texas study showed students who took AP in high school earned better grades in college." (I hadn't read this study but a previous one found that students who attempted an AP course in high school did better in college and those who took the test did even better.)
It will be interesting to see how Hale will keep its position of no separate AP and Honors classes (except, I think, in math) with what Dr. Goodloe-Johnson wants. We have heard here from parents who have written that they wouldn't want Hale because of the lack of AP. Roosevelt's LA department also doesn't offer AP classes. That is being revisited but it is very preliminary.
From the article:
"Garfield High School has the most AP courses in the district — 15. Any student can take them, but they are offered as part of the district's Accelerated Progress Program. Roosevelt has 11, and Ballard plans to offer 16 this school year, although not all of them have been approved by The College Board."
I did write to Emily Heffter, the reporter at the Times who wrote the article, to let her know that there was no APP in high school but the larger number of offerings at Garfield is because it is the feeder school for those students (if they choose to attend). AP at Garfield is open to all students.
One thing that I would love to see the Alliance or some other group step up to do is pay for the AP tests for low-income students. I believe the College Board, which runs AP, does have a reduced fee but it would be helpful if poorer students had to pay $10 or less or nothing in order to reduce barriers in their heads to attempting these courses.
Comments
If Garfield offered a more comprehensive Accelerated Progress Program and re-evaluated its participants in a meaningful way after kindergarten (i.e., not via the WASL) then I might feel differently.
(Disclaimer--I have an APP eligible 8th grader who will never be able to get into Garfield).
You have to take the WASL to stay in APP or Spectrum.
It's the Advanced learning Office's way of keeping the kids (and parents) in line by forcing them to take the WASL when they (and every other kid up to 10th grade) doesn't have to especially since it tells those parents nothing about their child's progress. So, to stay in the program, you take the WASL or else.
While of course I am not allowed to give details, it was extremely clear that the WASL requires very specific kinds of answers, and that you can't just rely on ordinarily good reading/writing skills to get through it. The necessary test-wiseness isn't hard to acquire (both girls scored much higher on reading the next year), but it was pretty obvious that it wasn't something that came by nature along with learning to read and write reasonably well.
I did get the impression that the scoring is less erratic than it once was. Even when I didn't agree with the scoring philosophy, there did appear to *be* a coherent scoring philosophy at work. Perhaps my kids just got lucky on their scorers, though -- I certainly can't rule out the possibility of bad scoring from two samples.
Incidentally, the cut-offs for qualifying for Spectrum, for APP, or for the Washington Search for Young Scholars, are all above the cutoff for level 4, even though the test is not set up to rank students accurately beyond the 1/2/3/4 sorting. The Johns Hopkins Talent Search, more sensibly IMO, takes any level 4 results.
Helen Schinske
It seems now we just skip many of the basics to push more kids into AP.
That's great! Do you have a reference for this? I can't find it on the district web site.
Helen Schinske