AP classes provide open access
by Martin Zazueta
Now most of the students at Southwest High school may not remember how someone was to get enrolled in an AP class in past years; in fact only the class of 2010 should have a first hand memory of how it used to be. Nowadays one can just sign up for just about any AP class they want (probably the most obvious exception being AP Calculus) and depending if there's room (or in some cases it doesn't matter) and they can enroll in the class. The way it used to be was that a student had to sign an AP contract that required both a parent signature and two teacher recommendations, the contract would state that you were aware of the rigor that comes from AP and that it was considered a college level course and were expected to conduct as such. It also used to be that to get out of AP would also require several parent meetings with both the counselor and the teacher, student with counselor conferences, and the process at the very least would take about two weeks. Now it's just a word with your counselor and you can get out almost at will.
Now most of the students at Southwest High school may not remember how someone was to get enrolled in an AP class in past years; in fact only the class of 2010 should have a first hand memory of how it used to be. Nowadays one can just sign up for just about any AP class they want (probably the most obvious exception being AP Calculus) and depending if there's room (or in some cases it doesn't matter) and they can enroll in the class. The way it used to be was that a student had to sign an AP contract that required both a parent signature and two teacher recommendations, the contract would state that you were aware of the rigor that comes from AP and that it was considered a college level course and were expected to conduct as such. It also used to be that to get out of AP would also require several parent meetings with both the counselor and the teacher, student with counselor conferences, and the process at the very least would take about two weeks. Now it's just a word with your counselor and you can get out almost at will.
AP may no longer have the same prestige it had before, with so many students filling up the AP classes (except for Science and Math), many of whom are not prepared for it or are just simply do not understand the dynamics of it. by not taking it seriously, it has created a form of lagging that may be impeding the growth of students.
This growing concept of letting more students into AP is colloquially known as "Open Access" or "Open Enrollment" which has the noble purpose of allowing students to grow and expand themselves academically, by letting those who want to take the extra mile to try it, and not just leave those for the ones who are already prepared for it. This idea embodies the core purpose of education of getting someone to make progress. But the reality is that a lot of students do not really grasp the idea that AP is supposed to be for students who are willing and wanting to take the extra mile: an example of this is that several AP students continuously lag in participation with little regard to try to progress despite how much a teacher tries to get them to do otherwise. Also there have been occasions when a teacher has said that "you wont get crossword puzzles in college, you should be doing essays" a student replied "well this isn't a college class". Despite the problems with Open Access, all the aspects are too much to deal with in a single article. More on this next week.
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