In AP Efforts, Students Soar, Globe Editors Flunk (Again)

More troubling has been the degree to which research concerning AP has been misinterpreted. When Answers in the Toolbox, an important study about factors predicting students staying in college which used AP courses as a variable, the College Board and its apologists (e.g. Jay Mathews) claimed that AP coursework led to increased bachelor's degree completion. In The Tool Box Revisited (p.43), researcher Clifford Adelman took the extraordinary step of correcting that misinterpretation of his previous research.

The spread of the Advanced Placement Program led to abuses of the system. Schools across the country, for example, ran courses that were AP in name only. These abuses led to the College Board instituting a audit in which course syllabi are submitted.  The proliferation of AP courses also outstripped the number of teachers qualified to deliver high-level AP instruction. Even kids sitting in AP classes with audited syllabi were and are sitting in classes with teachers lacking the skills and knowledge necessary to teach them effectively.

According to the Globe editors, teacher unions are killing a program set out by Mass Insight that encourages increased AP course taking in the math, science, and English. There is a lot to be gained by involving teachers and students in the AP Program. The professional development provided by the College Board is generally excellent (though there is little research to support this). The College Board does not distribute curriculum frameworks, but AP workshops and published, previous tests generally lead a teacher in the right direction. Much depends on AP training and teaching experience.

Mass Insight's program encouraging increased AP participation is generally sound. It provides training for teachers and funding for courses. The bone of contention is a form of merit pay based on test scores. There is a case to be made for paying AP teachers more money for more work. Teaching AP English Literature and Composition requires a lot of reading and correcting. It requires training that other English teachers don't have to undergo. Still at the high school level, work varies by subject. Physical education teachers have nowhere near the correcting or preparation required of biology teachers. English teachers usually have more prep and more complicated correcting than math teachers. Different pay for different work opens up a whole can of worms.

What about paying for AP test scores and score improvements? There is variety of issues involved, but quite frankly, merit pay for AP scores would probably not improve teacher performance. Why? Teaching an AP course is a bit like coaching a sport. The performance of high school coaches is rarely if ever tied to how much money they make.  High school coaches don't improve their season's record by three games because they get $1000 more. Success is its own reward. My experience with AP teachers suggests that they are similarly motivated. In schools with a healthy AP Program, teachers eagerly await the release of student scores. They are invested in the success of their students.  They view their own success in terms of their students success. 

Success in AP is also a team effort. A winning varsity team relies on the collective experiences of its players before they reach high school.  A town with a poor football program is unlikely to produce a winning team. The same is true for an AP course. Even with a curriculum aligned to AP courses (known as vertical teaming), preparation remains key.  An AP student who had ineffective instruction in Algebra II will be handicapped in AP Calculus. So will the AP teacher. An AP student who had good instruction in Algebra II will be more prepared to succeed in AP Calculus. Yet, if I read the Globe editorial correctly, only the AP teacher would receive merit pay.

Paying for AP test scores also has the potential to be counterproductive. How? By guiding students apt to be unsuccessful away from AP courses or by discouraging AP students lacking good scoring potential from taking the AP test. 

Neo-liberal educational theory says a lot more about how neo-liberals view the world than how education works. Mass Insight's push to increase Advanced Placement participation is fine. Advanced Placement is not the cure-all that many apologists make it out to be, but in most subjects, it leads to good professional development and improved instruction. AP tests provide a focused goal for both AP teachers and students,  but  merit pay for test scores unnecessarily complicates the issue.

Test scores are neither profit margins nor sales figures. There are too many variables involved in test success to tie them to classroom or teacher performance, not rewarding for performance," as the Globe editors would like us to think. Nor is it a matter of merely creating divisions between teachers. Although I believe such divisions are irrelevant to student achievement, paying AP teachers bonuses for test scores creates arbitrary divisions that beg the question of where learning begins and ends.

Success on AP tests takes a village, or in this case, a school system, not just an AP teacher.  Why "reward" the teacher who happens to handle the student last in the educational process? Teacher unions have endorsed merit pay when based on a multitude of factors and considered from an organizational point of view.  Not because unions are communists, but because they know the realities of education and team work.

Mark

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