Don’t Dismiss Early-College Options

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Posted on 11/22/2024 4:09:05 AM PST by karpov

The College Board has dumbed down its Advanced Placement (AP) examinations. That’s the message from Steven Mintz, professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, in a letter published by Rick Hess at the American Enterprise Institute. Mintz writes that entering college students who have taken AP courses come without real preparation.

At the University of Texas at Austin, where I am a professor of history, we see the consequences of this trend firsthand. Students who pass the AP U.S. History exam receive credit only for the second half of our U.S. history survey course. To earn credit for the first half, they must pass a faculty-graded essay exam. A substantial majority of these students fail to demonstrate the content knowledge or writing skills that we expect from a university-level history student. This reality exposes the gap between what AP courses promise and what they actually deliver.

Mintz more generally argues that “neither an AP nor an early-college or dual-degree class can replace the rich, challenging experience of a college course.”

The National Association of Scholars (NAS) and the Civics Alliance, for which I work, mostly agree with Mintz’s judgment, but not entirely. Certainly the College Board has greatly reduced the rigor of its examinations, and hence of AP courses. It reveals this by its changing advertising: It now claims that taking an AP class makes you “college ready” rather than that doing so necessarily substitutes for a college course. Increasing numbers of colleges have withdrawn their automatic acceptance of AP scores for college credit. Then, too, the College Board has grossly politicized its history examinations. AP History students now learn history distorted by omissions and biased interpretations.

(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...

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1 posted on 11/22/2024 4:09:05 AM PST by karpov

To: karpov

2 posted on 11/22/2024 4:11:48 AM PST by ClearCase_guy (My decisions about people are based almost entirely on skin color. I learned this from Democrats.)

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