The College Board has dumbed down its Advanced Placement (AP) examinations. That’s the message from Steven Mintz, professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, in a letter published by Rick Hess at the American Enterprise Institute. Mintz writes that entering college students who have taken AP courses come without real preparation.
At the University of Texas at Austin, where I am a professor of history, we see the consequences of this trend firsthand. Students who pass the AP U.S. History exam receive credit only for the second half of our U.S. history survey course. To earn credit for the first half, they must pass a faculty-graded essay exam. A substantial majority of these students fail to demonstrate the content knowledge or writing skills that we expect from a university-level history student. This reality exposes the gap between what AP courses promise and what they actually deliver.
Mintz more generally argues that “neither an AP nor an early-college or dual-degree class can replace the rich, challenging experience of a college course.”
Early-college and dual-degree classes are not always taught well—but, then, neither are college classes.The National Association of Scholars (NAS) and the Civics Alliance, for which I work, mostly agree with Mintz’s judgment, but not entirely. Certainly the College Board has greatly reduced the rigor of its examinations, and hence of AP courses. It reveals this by its changing advertising: It now claims that taking an AP class makes you “college ready” rather than that doing so necessarily substitutes for a college course. Increasing numbers of colleges have withdrawn their automatic acceptance of AP scores for college credit. Then, too, the College Board has grossly politicized its history examinations. AP History students now learn history distorted by omissions and biased interpretations.
The Civics Alliance has published American Birthright: The Civics Alliance’s Model K-12 Social Studies Standards not least to provide a content-rich alternative to the AP History examinations. These offer to states and school districts rigorous social studies standards that truly prepare students for college and for civic life. The American Birthright standards don’t include college-level courses—high schools should focus on solid preparation for college, not on teaching classes that provide shoddy simulacra of college courses.
But Mintz too quickly condemns early-college and dual-degree classes. These classes are not always taught well—but, then, neither are college classes. A great amount of introductory college courses are taught (at best) with a mediocre level of rigor—and with an appalling amount of politicization. College courses should, as Mintz correctly notes, require “engaging with ideas” and “developing independent thought.” But the typical introductory college history course, alas, indoctrinates students to hate and be ignorant of America and the West. It is plausible now to judge that students graduate from college less capable of independent thought and the ability to engage with ideas than when they entered.
One part of the solution is to reform the content of college courses, especially of general-education requirements. State policymakers might consider legislation informed by our Campus Intellectual Diversity Act, our General Education Act (jointly published with the Martin Center), our Core Curriculum Act, and our American History Act, which offer a range of possible solutions to depoliticize university education and to reform university general-education requirements at state-funded universities. We need to reform our universities so that they actually teach students to engage with ideas and develop independent thought.
Another part of the solution does indeed lie with early-college and dual-degree classes. We should strengthen this system so that students can take their entire range of required college courses in high school and avoid the stranglehold of politicized instruction at the college level. Our model Core Curriculum Act also ensures that students can take every university general-education requirement during high school.
If high-school teachers aren’t prepared to teach the equivalent of college courses, the answer is improvement of their preparation.This system does require better-prepared high-school teachers. One part of the solution is to improve the content-knowledge preparation of K-12 teachers. Our model Education Licensure Certificate Act would shift the preparation of would-be teachers away from hollow or counterproductive education-department courses and toward subject-matter courses. Another part of the solution should include strengthened financial support by states to prepare teachers to teach early-college courses. Many states already subsidize teachers who acquire subject MAs, which prepare them to teach AP courses and their equivalents. Any new subsidies need to be designed carefully—there’s some evidence that teachers’ master’s degrees don’t, on average, improve student performance. But if high-school teachers aren’t now fully prepared to teach the equivalent of college courses, the answer is thoughtful and tailored improvement of their preparation, including improved remuneration for properly qualified high-school teachers.
The College Board does great damage to American students. But so, too, do too many university professors. We must provide substitutes for the College Board, reform the universities, and make sure that our high schools are capable not only of providing real preparation for college but also of providing early-college courses that truly are the equivalents of college education.
David Randall is executive director of the Civics Alliance and director of research at the National Association of Scholars.
This article was originally published at www.jamesgmartin.center
