How Smart Is AP?

ERIKA LARSEN / REDUX FOR TIME
AP CALCULUS CLASS: Educators consider it one of the best AP offerings. Sonu Poonawala, a high school senior in New Jersey, takes AP Biology too

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But in some quarters, educators are worried that AP, which was created as a way to give bright high school seniors a taste of college, is turning into something it was never meant to be: a kind of alternative high school curriculum for ambitious students that teaches to the test instead of encouraging the best young minds to think more creatively. And as AP expands, some educators have begun to question the integrity of the programs and ask whether the classes are truly offering students an extra boost or merely giving them filigree for their college applications.

To be sure, many AP programs are first rate. Calculus, especially in the hands of a gifted teacher like Wasmuth, is widely considered to be one of the best-thought-out AP programs, as is AP English Language and Composition, which teaches students how to critically analyze literary works. Two years ago, when the Center for Education at the National Academy of Sciences conducted one of the few serious studies of the AP curriculum ever done, it praised the AP Calculus program for achieving "an appropriate balance between breadth and depth."

But the balance was off for the three other courses examined. AP Chemistry, Biology and Physics were found to be too sweeping in scope, lacking the depth of a good college course. The study's authors concluded that the practice and understanding of laboratory work a critical piece of college-level science was given short shrift both in the AP teacher's manuals and on the exams. They lamented that a "significant number of examination questions ... appear to require only rote learning" rather than a deeper understanding of science.

The emphasis of breadth over depth is a charge commonly leveled at AP history courses as well. Teachers who oversee the U.S.- and European-history classes frequently complain that there is little time for discussion or debate in these fast-paced romps through a half-millennium or more of names, dates and battles. Dennis Kenny, who teaches the AP U.S. History course at McNair, has to keep an eye on the clock and calendar to make sure he covers the sprawling curriculum in time for the May exam. "We're usually struggling the last few weeks just to get to the Reagan years," he says. This fall, with a presidential campaign under way, Kenny would have loved to draw some lessons from current events, but, he laments, "there's no time. The kids love when we break away and talk about today's election, but I'm looking at the clock and that's not a good thing."

It was the pell-mell nature of AP history classes in particular that prompted the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, a top private school in New York City, to drop all AP courses four years ago. Last year the Montclair Kimberley Academy in New Jersey decided to drop AP U.S. History. A number of other top private schools, including Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, have always steered clear of AP courses. Myra McGovern, a spokeswoman at the National Association of Independent Schools, discerns "a movement from a small group of independent schools that have said no to AP courses," preferring to offer high-level classes that are more focused, less test-driven and perhaps more engaging. "Learning is about having a passion," observes McGovern. "The threat is that students are so concerned with how they appear to the colleges that they pack in all sorts of AP courses that may not even interest them."