Schools' unrest over the AP test

Elite schools are dropping it, striking a blow to public education.

from the May 28, 2008 edition

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Through AP, students in public schools had access to the same courses taken by students at schools such as Andover and Exeter. In some cases, the AP curriculum increased the rigor of public school courses dramatically. More important, though, it closed the gap between elite and nonelite schools, and began to restore faith in public education among students, parents, and teachers. Maybe public schools weren't destinations of last resort after all.

But AP was not without its critics. Teachers at elite schools began to grumble about the program: It was a mile wide and an inch deep, it focused on memorization over critical thinking and analysis, and it restricted the curriculum to stodgy survey courses. AP was on shaky ground; yet, as long as colleges still smiled on the program, even elite schools couldn't risk dropping it.

As AP continued to spread through America's schools, however, it began to decline in prestige. In recent years, many colleges have stopped giving it weight in admissions and have raised the bar for those who want to receive course credit for their AP test scores. Consequently, top schools – in some cases the very schools that started AP – are dumping it like yesterday's newspaper. Instead, they're offering their own home-grown courses, which they bill as more rigorous than AP.

Leaders at elite schools no doubt genuinely believe they can do better than AP. And they probably can. But their move away from it is also about staying on top. High tuitions, after all, come with high expectations. Further, their move has consequences. In trashing AP, elite schools are sending a message that the apex of the public school curriculum is second-rate, no matter what Newsweek bases its public school rankings on.

And that's a shame. Not because the AP program is particularly special, but because for a moment it provided a glimmer of hope: that public education, particularly in urban areas, was not solely the reserve of those with no other options.

There is no quick fix for America's inner-city schools. But if the fleeting success of AP teaches us anything, it is that urban public schools can work if we shake off the impulse to dismiss them and instead fight to make them places we might send our own children.

• Jack Schneider is a Stanford graduate fellow at Stanford University and director of University Paideia, a precollege program for low-income students.

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