The College Board has decided to drop AP Programs in four subjects, reports Education Week. No more Italian, Latin lit, French lit, and Computer Science AB. A distinguished French professor in the Ivies says that a group of French professors are drafting a letter of protest, but the College Board has a ready reply. The enrollments aren’t there, and costs are rising. The Italian class claims only 1,642 students served, with 352 of them taking it as their only AP class. French literature isn’t much higher at, respectively, 2,068 and 86.
Trevor Packer, vice president at College Board, “said the decision was made principally because of demographic considerations.” The Italian program had only 97 underserved minority students served by it alone, and the French class gathered a microscopic 22. The AP program has made a point of reaching underserved minorities, and “for us, [the question is], are we able to achieve our mission of reaching a broader range of students?”
Added to that, consider the cost equation. The Italian program has run 400 percent over budget. Only if outside funding arrives will the College Board reconsider.
Additionally, beyond the immediate impact of the change, we should ask what it means for those fields at the college level, and for related subfields in Comparative Literature, History, and Art History. With overall AP course enrollments shooting up, any particular course that can’t at least hold its own stands out. Students aren’t interested, and if they’re not interested in 12th grade, they probably won’t get much more interested by college. Do we see parallel things happening with the size of French and Italian majors? Will those majors exist in 20 years?
