AP for everyone?

As an AP teacher in Baltimore City, the article in last week's post really struck me. In case you haven't read it, or aren't planning on reading it, the article talks about one inner city school where ALL students take two years of AP English classes, one in 11th grade and one in 12th grade. The school had over 200 students take the test last year, and only three of them "passed." This is a bit more understandable when you consider the fact that most of the student population are not native English speakers. But still...

Why did this school make this choice? And why is it so popular with both the students and the parents?

Because it gives the school structure and a meaningful assessment to work towards. "Janeece Docal, 32, the AP coordinator and English department head" said, " 'When we first started thinking about our English curriculum, I will be honest with you, it stunk. It was really, really bad. We had one teacher who had the AP class. Then we had another teacher teaching something else, which she liked, and then another teacher teaching what he liked.' "

Teachers discussed the problem and decided that even though AP was more difficult than the English courses their students were used to, it at least gave the English department a consistent, high standard and a way to show all students what they had to do to succeed in college."

Okay, I get it, we want to set high stakes for our students. We want a good curriculum that leads to a great assessment, I get all that. But why does it have to be AP? Why can't we do that for all of our students, without making them take the AP? Why didn't the English department sit down and make a consistent, rigorous curriculum before they started teaching AP? As teachers and educators aren't we capable of creating interesting classes with rigorous assessments without being told how to do so by a national FOR profit organization? Not all students should have to take an AP class to get a good education. But if they have to do so, doesn't that speak of something even greater?