Posted by Rena Pederson, Communications Director, NMSI

Jay Mathews has another terrific, thoughtful colum in The Washington Post today on the ability of AP programs to challenge students from different backgrounds.

By Jay Mathews
Friday, November 14, 2008; 6:34 AM

A teacher with the sign-on name of pfelcher posted a provocative comment on the Web version of my Nov. 3 column for the Post's Metro section. I was repeating for the 4,897th time my view that even low-income students who have not performed well in school can learn in a college-level high school course, like Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate, if given extra time and encouragement.

Pfelcher would have none of my argument. To support his opinion, he cited a personal experience in his classroom. I always find first-person accounts helpful when debating this issue. I decided to send his comment to a few other AP teachers I knew, and see what they had to say.

Here is the post from pfelcher, whom I do not know and cannot identify further, followed by the reactions of three teachers, plus a student who sent me his view. If we want to make our high schools better, we have to work this out. I think such exchanges help us figure out what to do:

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From pfelcher:

Access and the inclusivity it implies is a nice but ridiculous notion. I would never allow someone who could not swim access to a deep swimming pool. Access to AP classes begins not the minute a child feels like walking into a class for which he is woefully unprepared, but in EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION.

Unfortunately, articles like this invariably focus only on the underachieving, semi-literate students who are told from day one that they can be whatever they want to be. These same students are never taught from Day One what it really takes to be whatever they want to be. These articles never focus on the capable students who have worked hard to try to wring some substance out of a usually pitiful public school education. These students are the ones brought down by this warm-fuzzy inclusivity.

Last year in my 11th grade AP English Language class, I had many of my own Honors 10th graders again and the previous year they had read about 10 books; they had written an annotated bibliography; they had read and written about texts from several of the major genres, eras and schools of thought. In addition to these students, I had several students from the larger public school community, who had read one or two books the entire previous year and who had barely written a thesis or complete argument.

It's not about who wins in a class of students with such disparate preparation and skill; it's about who loses. The students ready to march ahead are forced instead to grind to a halt as the other students have to be taught the basics with which they should have entered the class.

At the end of the year, those unprepared students who might have gained from my class but who still had too far to go to attain the literacy and competence the test requires, failed miserably on the AP exam. So, did these lower-end students gain from the experience? Yes, they did to some degree, even though egos that had never really been tried suffered when they saw how they compared to the nation.

Then there is the other question -- Did the kids who had worked hard to be prepared for the class gain from experience? NOT AS MUCH AS THEY HAD A RIGHT TO. Could we cover all I had hoped? Not by a long shot, since I had to review and re-teach all that should have been taught to my other students sooner.

So, yes, this kind of feel-good, everyone-can-do-it idea is valuable, but not at the expense of students who are not trying to game the system but who have worked solidly to learn and succeed. If we are serious about inclusivity we must adhere to the notion that ACCESS BEGINS IN KINDERGARTEN, not at the moment a child who has effectively been asleep in school for 11 years suddenly decides to wake up!

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From Michael Grill, AP Network coordinator and AP social studies teacher at Wakefield High School in Arlington County:

1) Scary to think this person is a teacher.

2) It appears he/she does not teach in a public high school. . . . Thank goodness.

3) If he/she felt students in his/her classroom were not prepared adequately, what was precluding him/her from helping those students outside normal classroom time?

4) The notion that access to AP classes should begin in early childhood education is absurdly myopic. (See below.)

Recently my colleague Mary Ann Bell and I gave a presentation to approximately 40 parents and 8th grade students who wanted to learn more about our AP Network here at Wakefield. Our entire presentation focused on our open-door policy and the myriad support programs (AP Summer Bridge, AP Study Seminar, AP Lunch Lab, Academic Cohort for Minority Males, United Minority Girls, etc.) that we have created to help the non-traditional AP students we have here at Wakefield.

Not all students come from homes and communities that can provide the kind of early childhood education that pfelcher feels is necessary in order to be successful in AP. In addition to the kinds of AP students pfelcher prefers to teach, the AP classes at Wakefield are filled with kids from low-income homes, homes where the parents work two or three jobs, and homes where English is not spoken.

The overwhelming majority of our AP students have never been identified as gifted. We also have AP students with individualized education programs that require hosts of accommodations. Do all of these students earn A's and B's and receive passing scores on the AP exams? Absolutely not. Last year, our AP pass rate was 53 percent -- 4 percentage points below the national pass rate of 57 percent (for the AP exams taken by Wakefield students). More significantly, though, I would venture to say that most of our AP students feel as though they BELONG in their AP classes because they can look around the classroom and see other students like themselves AND MOST IMPORTANTLY because they know that the teacher in that classroom WANTS them to be in there. (The same can be said for the other teachers, counselors, administrators, and specialists who pushed and encouraged these kids to take on the challenge of AP.)

I do feel sorry for the prepared students whom pfelcher prefers to have in his/her AP classroom. They absolutely are being held back. Pfelcher is the impediment, though -- not the kids from the larger public school community whom he wants to cast off . . . and whom we at Wakefield would gladly embrace.

* * *

From Patrick Mattimore, former AP Psychology teacher:

First, I agree with the author and believe that we must develop new strategies to intervene even before kindergarten.

I don't have a direct experience of the type the author is talking about with regard to my AP classes since 90 percent of my kids typically passed the exam.

To be frank, had I been in pfelcher's position I would have either done what (s)he did or continued to teach the class at an appropriate AP level and handed out inflated grades.

* * *

From Frazier O'Leary, AP English teacher at Cardozo High School in the District:

I would really like to meet those underachieving, semi-literate students who are told from Day One that they can be whatever they want to be. Our AP classes are open to any students who are willing to take the hardest course they will ever take in high school and to better themselves. I hope that this teacher gets out of his or her school before he or she pollutes more students.

I have found that the better students in the class help the others become better. The AP class must be a team. Without a team approach, especially when you are discussing what the author means or does, the class will not move. Our motto is: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp." Our goal is for the students to become successful college students. Our college acceptance rate is well over 90 percent and our students graduate from colleges and universities all over the country.

If, as pfelcher said, the students failed miserably on the AP, a mirror might be a better barometer. I really don't know on what planet this person teaches, but we have to teach the students where they are and push them to their limits and beyond.

Passing the AP test is a great accomplishment and those who do should be praised, but being involved in the higher level thinking that goes on in every AP classroom (I hope) is what makes the class worthwhile for any student willing to accept the rigor.

* * *

From Freddy Mejia, student.

As a Hispanic senior attending Wakefield High School, AP classes have been a challenging yet rewarding task in which any student comes to better comprehend what it takes to become a successful college student. I can assure you that whether they do well or miss the mark on these exams, AP and IB students will have a head-start in comprehending how much more competitive the world is once you leave high school.

Any student may look for an easy teacher in any regular class searching for an easy and high grade point average, but there is no hiding your deficiencies in the results of these AP exams. I was given the chance to take my first AP class during my sophomore year and I scored a 4 out of 5 on the World History AP exam. Without my counselor recommending this class for me, I may have never tried to explore AP classes and I would have stayed oblivious to the amount of work expected in college classes, setting me up for failure not in high school but later in life.

Also, limiting the number of AP students or classes effectively makes college more expensive for those who would have passed these tests. I have taken and passed four AP exams and earned at least twelve college credits, giving me comparable credits to a full semester of college, a full semester for which my parents and I won't be paying.

* * *

From me:

Pfelcher was rightly concerned about having to dumb down the course and give his best students less than they were ready for. The AP and IB teachers with the best results in the classes, for both fast and slow students, have told me they don't need to grind the whole thing to a halt to help kids at the bottom. For some courses, particularly calculus and foreign languages, unprepared students should not be admitted. But in most AP classes with students at different levels, some will grasp more of the classroom discussion than others, but for nearly everyone there is a net gain. The data show that opening AP to anyone who wants to take it does not reduce the number of students getting the top scores on the exams, one indication that the fastest students are not hurt.

I am interested, however, in hearing from any students who felt their AP or IB course was diluted to their detriment. I am at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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