Should Scarsdale Drop AP?

Jay Matthews:

But at Scarsdale High, my son was told he could not get into the course unless he did well on an entrance test given to every prospective AP U.S. history student. He passed the test, got into the course and did well, as I expected. That was not my problem. What bothered me was the assumption, deeply imbedded in that school and that community, that AP courses should not be used as great learning experiences for all students headed for college, as they were at Garfield, but instead should be used as rewards for good grades and test scores. At Scarsdale High, only the students with the highest entrance test scores, or highest grade-point averages and strongest teacher recommendations, were considered worthy of admission to an AP course. Not surprisingly, this approach reflected the Ivy League college admission system that is such an obsession in Scarsdale and places like it.

I have always been grateful to Scarsdale High's educators for exposing me to this dysfunctional view of AP because I soon learned that they were not the exception, but the rule. Most U.S. schools, then and now, felt as Scarsdale did that AP should be used as a sorting exercise, not a teaching tool. Eventually, in reaction to what I learned at Scardale, I created the Challenge Index, a way of rating high schools by AP and IB test participation. The index is used by Newsweek for its "America's Best High Schools" list. Many Scarsdale people don't like it because it penalizes them for restricting AP admittance. They think the school deserves to be much higher than number 176 on that list.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at November 2, 2006 12:15 PM
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