Are Advanced Placement Courses Worthwhile?

Instead of having individual student desks, my Physics classroom had lab benches, each with three chairs.  So I assigned one stronger, one middle, and one weaker student to each bench.  I said, “I expect you to help each other with your problem sets and lab reports.  If one of your partners does poorly, that means you need to help them.  We are a Catholic school.  In the Beloved Community, every one helps each other.  We do not abandon each other. 

My students who chose to take the Physics SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) averaged 600, one standard deviation above the national average.  I believe that was because my stronger students were actually lifting their weaker partners. 

But many years later I suddenly had one section of Physics with no strong students. They could not understand much of what I taught.  Many did not know how to do the homework calculations or the lab reports.  They could not help each other.  It felt like trying to teach physics to a forest of trees.  Their quiz scores dropped dramatically.  Yet all my other sections of Physics were performing as usual.  Just how valuable the stronger students were to the rest of their classmates suddenly became crystal clear to me. 

During the 1980’s and 90’s, my school slowly began introducing Advanced Placement (AP) courses.  But because I had seen what happened to the not-so-strong students when all the strong students were removed, each time the administration asked about introducing AP Physics, I declined. 

Typically, the top 20% of students are admitted into an AP course.  We are telling these top students, “You are more gifted than others.  You will be taught more than the others.  They can not keep up with you.  You will go farther than they will.  You will leave them behind.  You are the elite.”

We are telling the other 80%, “You are not as gifted.  You will not have the chance to watch, or listen to, or learn from, your more capable friends.  You will not have the chance to learn from our best teachers.  You will not be able to enter a top university.  You will not go as far as your more gifted peers.  You  will be left behind.  You are not the elite.”

Is this separation of AP from non-AP students worthwhile?  How much farther do our AP students advance, compared to their learning in mixed classes?  How much less do our non-AP students advance, compared to their learning in mixed classes?  I have never heard anyone mention such cost vs. benefit research.  My experience with my one section with no strong students suggests strongly that the non-AP cost far outweighs the AP benefit. 

There is also a secondary effect of this separation on other subject areas.  If all the classes in one department are separated, then during the periods of their AP sections, other departments will find that their classes have fewer or no strong students.  That is probably what happened that year when I suddenly had one section of Physics with no strong students. 

It gradually became clear to me that AP is segragating our American young people, not by race, but by ability.  Is there a difference between separation and segregation?  Which is  worse – being told you can not do something because you are dark, or because you are dumb?

What is such segregation of abilities doing to America?  This must necessarily lead to a polarization of Americans into more able and less able, more powerful and less powerful.  Of course, we Americans are already being segregated into rich and poor by our economic system.  Are our American elites not abandoning our non-elites?  Is this not exactly what AP has taught them over the past 40 years?

Now our educational system is furthering that segregation.  We are becoming a technologically advanced nation, at the price of sacrificing the strength and resilience of our sense of community.  Which will be more durable – a nation with advanced technology and weapons, or a nation with advanced caring and community?

I tried several times to warn my fellow teachers about this segregation.  But some were not open-minded enough to see this reality.  Like all critics, I became increasingly unpopular with some of my peers. 

In 2001-2002 I took a sabbatical, and went back to UC Berkeley for the year.  When I returned I discovered that my classes were being segregated.  I was heartbroken.  I knew that our non-AP students were being sacrificed on the altar of money.  When I tried to imagine teaching the non-AP sections, all I could image was bursting into tears.  I immediately resigned from teaching physics, even though that had been my love for 30 years. 

Pace e bene

Lorin