To the editor, RE "Behind The Rankings" (June 8, 2009):
If Newsweek published a ranking of car seats based solely on the number of people who bought different brands (but without regard to the safety of the seats or the types of children they???re designed for), parents would be up in arms. Certainly, few would bother buying the magazine. Yet Newsweek publishes the Challenge Index, based on similarly faulty measurements, every other year.
The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) believes that ranking schools is a disservice to families. Rankings like the Challenge Index imply that school quality can be measured by one narrow criterion. We know otherwise. The best school is the school that most closely meets the needs of an individual child.
The process of finding the right school for a child requires parents to evaluate what each child needs from his or her school. The family must then investigate the schools available to them to determine how well each school meets those needs. NAIS has developed a series of tips and questions to help families navigate the process. The questions can be found at www.nais.org/go/parents.
Patrick F. Bassett
President
National Association of Independent Schools
Washington, DC
Behind The Rankings
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As for why I rank, when it creates so much trouble, see question No. 7.
13. Don't students in some schools that have both IB and AP tests practice a form of double-dipping? I hear that many of the IB students take both the IB and the AP tests in the same subject. Doesn't that skew your index?
It would, but we look for it and subtract from each school's total number of tests any AP tests taken by IB students who did not take a separate AP course in that subject.
14. You've got something new called the Catching Up list. What is that all about?
I have created a separate ranked list for schools that are in the early stages of developing their AP programs and have exam-passing rates below 10 percent. They deserve recognition for their efforts to build a strong college-level program, but their average level of student work is so low that they do not yet belong on the main Challenge Index list. As soon as a school reaches the 10 percent passing mark, I will switch it to the main list.
15. Why are you making such a big deal out of AP? I hear more and more selective colleges are saying they don't like the program and are raising the score for which they will grant course credit, and some high schools are dropping AP altogether. I have heard some people say the courses are either watered down, so the schools can stuff in more students and look good on your index, or limit a teacher's ability to be creative.
There is a bit, but only a small bit, of truth in what you have heard. Many selective colleges are making it harder to get credit for taking AP, IB and Cambridge courses and tests in high schools, but their reasons for doing so are unclear. Former philosophy professor William Casement, who has analyzed this trend, says he thinks AP courses and tests are not as good the introductory college courses and tests they were designed to substitute for, and that is why those colleges are pulling back. There is unfortunately almost no evidence to back up his theory. In fact, the colleges have done almost no research on the quality of their introductory courses, while the College Board has expert panels that regularly compare AP courses with college intro courses to make sure they are on the same level.
Some high-school educators think the colleges don't like to give AP credit because it costs them revenue. There is no evidence to support that theory either, but it is clear that selective -college admissions offices, as opposed to their credit-granting departments, are very happy to see AP or IB courses on applicants' transcripts.
As for high schools rejecting AP, there are about 50 that have done that. They are almost all private, expensive and represent less than 2/10ths of 1 percent of the nation's high schools. Thousands of high schools, by contrast, are opening more AP or IB courses, which they say are the only national programs that provide a high and incorruptible standard for student learning.
Because AP and IB exams are written and scored by outside experts, it is impossible to water down an AP or IB course without exposing what you have done—UNLESS you make sure very few of the students take the tests. That is why we count tests, not courses, for the index. As for teacher creativity, AP and IB encourages it more than any other high-school program I know. The tests reward creative thinking and original analysis. Creative teachers who produce creative students find their AP and IB test scores are very high.
16. Even AP teachers don't like the NEWSWEEK list. Some whose schools made the list are its biggest critics. What do you think of that?
They are smart and hard-working educators who are entitled to their opinions. But so are those AP teachers who tell me the list helps them gain support for their students. Here is what Brian Rodriguez, who teaches AP American history and AP European history at Encinal High School in Alameda, Calif., told me about the impact of AP on non-AP courses in a school with many low-income and minority students:
"AP teachers rarely teach only AP classes. They have many other responsibilities to their department, collaborative educational focus groups and as liason to our middle schools. The AP techniques honed in years of teaching or gleaned from seminars are used in the regular classrooms (at a slower pace, but no less effectively). For instance, I am teaching a unit on Vietnam to my regular U.S. history class. I use the PowerPoint lecture I developed for my AP class on that subject, teach the students to take notes, use the Socratic method discussion techniques so effective in AP classes, and then teach writing methods and tips I use so effectively in my AP classes. In addition, I will teach these techniques to our new teachers at history department meetings, prepare a pamphlet on multiple-choice-testing techniques that was distributed to all teachers at our school to prepare them for state standardized testing, and then visit our local middle schools to make a presentation to the teachers there. In summary, AP teaching can be schoolwide, and raises all the ships in the harbor."
© 2009
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