April 4, 2008

College Board to Eliminate 4 Unpopular Advanced Placement Courses

The College Board plans to cut four unpopular Advanced Placement courses after the 2008-9 academic year, according to The Washington Post.

College Board leaders announced in an e-mail message to high-school teachers on Thursday that the AP program would eliminate its Italian, Latin literature, French literature, and computer-science-AB courses, the Post reported. All of the courses have low enrollment. The Italian course, for example, is serving only 1,642 students nationwide.

Board leaders told the Post that they had no plans to cut other courses in the AP program. —Elyse Ashburn

Comments

1. Another sign of the continuous decline of Eurocentric education, as we laboriously apply the saw to the mouldy tethers of our past.

   — marci    Apr 4, 02:38 PM    #

2. A foolish and shortsighted decision (as I think the previous comment was saying!).

   — Gustave    Apr 4, 04:38 PM    #

3. The dubious merits of the decision aside, it’s troubling that the announcement comes out of the blue, without professional consultation or even a call for opinion; and it allows very little lead-time for those involved at the school and college level (not to mention publishers) to prepare for the change. The CB can expect serious blowback.

   — JJH    Apr 4, 04:48 PM    #

4. Yes, CB, it is clear that 1642 students, in this day and age of academic, math, science, and global knowledge excess, should be symbolically told that their learning efforts are not worth CB’s bottom line return.

   — lloyd    Apr 4, 04:56 PM    #

5. Yes, this is wise. Two out of every three jobs in all of science, technology, and engineering is going to be asking for a bachelor’s degree in computer science, so let us kill computer science as fast as possible.

   — Duncan Buell    Apr 4, 05:25 PM    #

6. While I agree that basing offerings on popularity is unwise, I just wish they would get rid of all AP courses. Why are we calling these high school classes reasonable substitutes for what students would learn in college?

   — neniaf    Apr 4, 05:35 PM    #

7. This decision by the AP board doesn’t mean that the schools offering these courses have to discontinue them; it simply means that they will no longer be part of the Advanced Placement course offerings. Imagine a student taking Latin Literature or computer science because he or she is interested in the subject, not because it could possibly lead to college credit or because the grade in that course counts for more in the student’s GPA. Am I being too unrealistic here?

   — J. Ward    Apr 4, 05:39 PM    #

8. The French literature test made a real effort to include works from writers all over the francophone world, Marci. It’s not very fair to characterize it as “Eurocentric.”

   — Decatur_Gator    Apr 4, 05:52 PM    #

9. This is probably another push that will ultimately change the courses to dual credit option courses instead of AP courses for those high schools and districts that have a vision beyond the “AP Mentality” as the do-all be-all of advanced education offerings.

   — JBJones    Apr 4, 07:03 PM    #

10. How about we stop overestimating CB’s impact on Education. If a college president can’t tell most faculty what to teach, and a high school is controlled by an elected school board, how the h-e-double-hockey-sticks do the actions of a private organization have any hope of being a major influence on curriculum. Especially one whose marquis exam is becoming less relevant to college admission processes by the minute. Students who are in the social strata to take AP exams and AP courses will find the curriculum they want, and afford it, one way or another. The rest of the world will carry on as usual.

    — JS    Apr 4, 07:18 PM    #

11. What this also demonstrates is a shortage of course offerings in latin, Italian and French courses in American high schools. With many school districts facing severe budget cuts, we will see less and less music, art, and language offered to students.

    — Monica    Apr 4, 07:25 PM    #

12. Go to CIMEA, the Italian Web site for foreign students who might want to attend an Italian university. See what it says you need if you have a U.S. high school diploma. There aren’t 20 kids in the U.S. who could meet the standards. Now, given the College Board’s encouragement, there may be less. And we wonder why the rest of the world will be taking us to the cleaners?

    — archer    Apr 4, 09:33 PM    #

13. What a shame to eliminate Latin and French Literature. Most students who take one of those courses are shooting to get into one of the top 50 universities and colleges in America. It is fine if the student lives in a city where courses at colleges can be substituted, but I pity students who have no way to continue their language studies during their senior year.

    — Meredith    Apr 4, 10:03 PM    #

14. Et tu Brute?

    — Jester    Apr 4, 11:14 PM    #

15. In regard to the question posted above asking how College Board can control high school offerings, the sad truth is that ever since high schools and some colleges (e.g. the U.C. system) began adding a 1 point GPA boost to any course with “AP” in the title, students, parents, and administrators have felt that top students cannot afford not to enroll in as many AP courses as possible. In a recent study, over 80% of students say that they take AP courses for the GPA/admissions advantage, and that they don’t care at all about the exam or placement. It is time to take away this artificial and misguided “advantage.” Do that, and the whole AP mania will vanish overnight.

    — Henri    Apr 5, 12:16 AM    #

16. A couple comments:
    I’m very sad to see the college board cutting classes, particularly AP Computer Science AB, given the continuing global demand for computer scientists and software engineers.

    The college board’s AP program is one of the best things to happen to my school district. The rigorous (at least in comparision to non-AP classes) curriculum drove both teachers and students in the classes I took to excellence.

    JS- The college board and AP tests affect curriculum because they both provide incentive (college credit and prestigue) while at the same time inducing competition on scores. Take away the tests and you take away a large part of the incentive of offering such a course.

    Henri-
    First off, I never got any GPA advantages from taking AP classes. Wish I did, I would have had a much higher GPA.
    Secondly, although I freely admit that courses that are not designated AP can be just a challenging as AP courses, this is not normally the case. In the school district I graduated from it is much easier to earn an A in current affairs then it is to earn an A in AP US Government even though these are both one semester senior level courses. Does it makes sense to consider them the same grade?

    — JakeFoxe    Apr 5, 04:18 AM    #

17. Cancelling one of the two Latin exams will probably harm both HS and college Latin enrollments, and if they think they can only keep one, why not the more flexible Lit instead of the rigid Virgil? The Latin AP exams aren’t all that great (they promote an old-fashioned approach to Latin), but if we didn’t have them we’d probably lose HS Latin almost entirely, which would be a shame.

    — AEM    Apr 5, 05:07 PM    #

18. All HS students should be encouraged to take the British A Levels offered by OCR or Edexcel in any subject of their choice. A number of students are already doing so.

    — Sol    Apr 7, 10:12 AM    #

19. By the way, how is the College Board related to ETS? ETS is a for-profit group that seemingly has control on which subjects are AP…not just affecting the ones mentioned here, but for instance they refuse to develop an AP Geosciences course. This adversely affects high school to post-secondary bridging within that science vocational track.

    — Concerned    Apr 7, 12:47 PM    #

20. While most high schools do offer a different weight for AP courses during a student’s high school career, their GPA is UN-weighted before being sent to the various institutions to which they are applying. The only advantage there, I feel, is to give those who are taking harder courses consideration in calculation high school honors. The AP Board, not the high schools, award the scores, and the colleges and universities then have their own standards as to whether they will accept the score for College credit.

    — RL Ryder    Apr 7, 12:57 PM    #

21. On the one hand, the elimination of “small” language tests is once again a testimony to the dearth in foreign language instruction in the US. On the other hand, one can only hope that other languages will take their places; to whit, Portuguese, Arabic, Korean… ?
    I frankly doubt it.
    The AP computer science exam should merely be revamped to keep up with the fast moving progress in programming, not eliminated.

    — F. bellermann    Apr 8, 04:47 PM    #

22. There are many interesting comments here, some of merit. Others are plain incorrect. For instance, ETS is a non-profit organization, and the College Board decides on what AP tests get carried and what don’t. ETS is a contractor to the College Board, and employs the best psychometricians on the planet.

    The College Board, also a non-profit entity, has to act in a business matter. If only 1,600 students are taking Italian, with no possibility of increase, it needs to make tough decisions. These tests cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to prepare each year. We can’t have ALL tests. CB/ETS has added Chinese and other languages over the years. It makes sense that it drops those that there isn’t a viable market for.

    — Watson Scott Swail    Apr 9, 04:19 PM    #

23. @Watson:

    Incorrect, incorrect. College Board is a NOT-FOR-PROFIT, not non-profit. Non-profits are generally run by volunteers, not-for-profits claim to NOT be out for a profit, but if they make one, then that’s just a (profitable) part of business for them.

    As of now (4-2008), the Italian AP has been offered exactly TWICE. There has not been a lot of time to get schools involved (unless you consider three years in a 5-7 year sequence a lot of lead time). The CollegeBoard audits the course from each school and each program. The syllabus and examples I submitted was over 70 pages of entirely original material. Furthermore, I developed over 300 pages of research, exercises and activities aimed specifically towards preparation for this exam which I have shared (not-for-profit) with my colleagues, from coast-to-coast).

    Personally, my program is new and I have 34 students taking the AP Italian test for the first time this year. As to claims of the “viability” of Italian, their research is based on pure ignorance of the subject matter.

    There is more to the story, as I spoke to one of the authors of the Italian AP about one week before the College Board announcement was made public: College Board claims they have too much invested in this test. They want more money, four times as much. So basically, this is a shakedown from this “not-for-profit”.

    Just one more point, I have worked as an independent contractor for ETS/CollegeBoard for almost every single year for over a decade. They are a business, they pay well, and they are first and foremost out to make money.

    — Deecee    Apr 13, 07:51 AM    #

24. From an email I received this morning:

    Subject: Re: History of the AP Italian Language and Culture Exam
    From: xxx_@comcast.net
    Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008

    Please, publicize as soon as possible and every where, the official results of the ACTFL 2007 Post-Secondary Planning Survey, sent to more 70,170 students who answered this question: if you could, which language would you select to study at the college level?
    The Survey indicates that, if given the option, more students would choose to study Italian than any other foreign language. The answer received indicates that the majority of those students responding, (54%) indicated that they would like to study Italian.

    “Italian is extremely popular among the choices of our students. These results give us faith and demonstrate the great interest that the American students have for our Italian language and culture.” has indicated Prof. Luigi De Sanctis, the Educational Director of the Embassy of Italy.

    At this moment in which the College Board wants to suppress the Italian Advanced Program, this is indeed a very good news. The Italian AP would certainly not close down because Italian is unpopular.
    Please let every one know about the results of the 2007 Survey as soon as possible Thank you!

    — Deecee    Apr 13, 10:50 PM    #

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