School districts move away from honors classes in favor of AP courses (to push minorities into AP's)

Washington Post ^ | May 21, 2011 | Kevin Sieff

[RnMomof7]

Thats interesting..I do not know much about ACT ..our schools use the new downward revised SAT’s

[newzjunkey]

Our older son has wrapped up the last of his AP classes, and what we've seen is that many schools do not accept AP credits

That's one of the dirty little secrets.

[freekitty]

Yep, keep lowering the standard.

[9YearLurker]

What are state AP exams?

[Think free or die]

"That's one of the dirty little secrets."

Our sons are pretty cynical about the whole college testing process by now. They've been subjected to an endless process of standardized testing, accompanied by a seemingly endless stream of requests from us for checks to pay for this test, that test, this prep book and that . . .

Both of them opted to forgo the SAT prep course offered by the school, which came at a significant savings over the privately offered ones. They decided that they could prepare well enough without it. We agreed that they could take the SAT test in the fall of Junior year, which gave them time enough to re-group if they did poorly without the prep class. It worked for our older son, and in the fall we'll see about his brother.

What our sons tell us is that many of the hyper competitive kids (mostly Asians) in their school take the SAT's 5 or 6 times until they get scores they can live with. They also take SAT subject tests one at a time, rather than take two on a single day. It has something to do with being able to drop the scores they don't like without dropping the results of the entire day of testing. I don't recall now whether it's a case of not turning in the test booklet or whether they choose not to report the day's results. It's all a bit over the top for me.

There's a huge industry sucking our bank accounts dry over this. Between local school taxes, universities, testing services, and the sundry coaching, advising and preparatory goods and services, it's quite a racket.

[Vaduz]

Advanced Placement = Slackers free ride ticket

[riverdawg]

I think your son made a wise decision about the college calculus and physics classes. In my field, the AP course is something of a joke mainly because there are so few high school teachers who really know the subject. And it rarely hurts to sit through an important subject again, even if much of it is somewhat familiar.

[Think free or die]

He’s a sensible young man - most of the time. Some of his AP teachers have been excellent, and others not so good. Fortunately, he is astute enough to know the difference and adjust his plans.