-> Where We Stand
->
-> By Albert Shanker
->
-> Home-Grown Standards

-> Every state ought to follow South Carolina's lead in making AP
-> courses more widely available and in removing financial roadblocks to
-> offering and taking them. If states do that, they might also discover
-> that AP offers some useful perspectives on their own
-> standards-setting process. Once greater participation in AP becomes a
-> goal, states will find that more of their students can meet tough AP
-> standards than they thought possible. They will also find that
-> greater participation in AP shifts the whole agenda of their schools
-> towards higher academic achievement.
I expect this would probably be the case. At our school enrollment is
2000 (approx.). Last year we had students sit for over 500 AP exams.
That is not to say that we had 500 students take AP exams. In this 500
there is a lot of duplication, since a given student may have taken 3 or
4 exams in a single year.
Nevertheless, there is a lot of emphasis on high academic achievement,
and I have been pleasantly surprised to see many of our Student Body
elected officers, cheerleaders, athletes, homecoming court, etc... be AP
scholar students. While there is still a lot of peer pressure to do as
little as possible to get by (as was mentioned in a previous article
here), at least it seems to be OK at our school to get good grades and
academic honors.
Sheila
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