Educational Leadership & Technology

In the past, I thought the College Board was really interested in education through offering challenging, rigorous, college-level academic courses to high school students. But recent events show me that the College Board is really all about the money. For years the College Board has bragged about the research that shows that high school students who take an AP course perform better in college; even if those students failed the AP exam, they still posted high GPA’s than their counterparts who never took an AP course. Two years ago, in order to bring some uniformity to the courses being called AP, the College Board asked all AP teachers to submit a syllabus of their course for approval. Those who wrote a good, college-level syllabus were accepted as official AP classes. After many long and difficult hours of preparing my syllabus, I submitted it to the College Board; later, it was approved and my class was given the permission to be officially called an AP course. Now, just two years later, the College Board is not only allowing students to take the AP Exams without taking official AP courses, but they are also building AP Exam preparation centers to train students to take the exams. So why was I asked to submit a syllabus for approval? If students can avoid taking official courses and still take the exams by “studying” at cram schools, what is the point of having official AP courses? The College Board for years has been showing the research that demonstrates that students who take actual AP courses in high school perform better in college; but now they are saying that those course are unimportant, because students can simply take cram sessions and pass the exam. This decision is clearly about money. The College Board wants to make more money by building special cram schools where students learn the exam and then pass it; where is the rigorous, college-level work coming into this new equation?