AP courses are offered at nearly every major high school in the country, giving students a chance to earn college credit. What the students do not realize is that they’re being prepped for life in a politically correct America.
by Michael Naragon
I believe most of you would agree that the major ideological battle in the United States is being fought in the educational system. Conservatives are losing. Period. As an educator and a conservative, I have not conceded defeat, but the situation looks bleak. Liberal philosophy has pervaded the system, diminishing exceptionalism and marginalizing traditional values upon which this country was based.
Before I became involved with the Advanced Placement program, I had believed that AP was in some way the last bastion of purely merit-based education. Success in an AP course is achieved by gaining entrance into the class and passing an objective exam. There is no room for social experimentation, right?
How wrong I was.
The College Board, the creators of the AP program, have issued an “Equity Policy Statement,” presumably to ensure that students are treated fairly.
“AP Access and Equity Initiatives
The College Board and the Advanced Placement Program encourage teachers, AP Coordinators, and school administrators to make equitable access a guiding principle for their AP programs. The College Board is committed to the principle that all students deserve an opportunity to participate in rigorous and academically challenging courses and programs. All students who are willing to accept the challenge of a rigorous academic curriculum should be considered for admission to AP courses. The Board encourages the elimination of barriers that restrict access to AP courses for students from ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in the AP Program. Schools should make every effort to ensure that their AP classes reflect the diversity of their student population.”
Please re-read the last sentence of the statement. I am in agreement with everything written up to that point. I believe any student who wants to participate in an AP class and has the skills necessary to do so should not be denied that opportunity. I don’t believe that any student should be discriminated against because of race, background, or ethnicity, provided they have the ability to be successful in an AP course.
What I take issue with is the last sentence. The College Board is not making an official demand of schools. It does not threaten or cajole. Still, the message is clearly sent: your AP classes should reflect the racial population of your school in general. This is done to introduce “traditionally non-represented” students into the AP Program. One of the groups that is being encouraged to participate, according to one AP instructor, is “immigrants,” or children of “immigrants.” Translation = illegals.
So not only do illegal immigrants have access to free public education at the expense of the citizen, they also have access to the AP program and the elite instructors that teach those classes. In the state of Florida, AP students, including illegals, who are successful on the final exam are given cash, also courtesy of the taxpayer.
Essentially, what the College Board is asking schools to do is to look at demographics before merit. Before I became personally involved with the program, I would have assumed the opposite to be the case. As another AP educator commented, “We’re not looking for [high] scores.” Instead, the program is evidently seeking to assimilate itself into the public school culture and become a source of social experimentation and racial justice, a far cry from the achievement-based system it was intended to be.
The real misfortune is not that certain groups may or may not be adequately represented in the AP program to the satisfaction of those who concern themselves with such things. The true tragedy is that, given the College Board’s motivations, every student in the program may now have cause to question if it was their skills that gave them access, or their skin.
My wife is an AP teacher and I can tell you from hearing all bout her students, and comparing them to my non-traditional college students that, while this is exactly as you represent it, it can’t change much. What barriers do they want eliminated? They don’t know, unless they are the academic standards. At some point students will have to perform, if only to suit college instructors who are liberal but demanding out of sheer snootiness.
Don’t despair, you are not the only conservative educator out there.
I don’t see how this will make a difference. The point of an AP class is to prep students to take the AP exam. The only way a student will receive college credit is if they perform well on said exam. Theoretically, the entire student body could register for the AP class.
The point of the article is to question why they would even make such a statement. Many schools, contrary to your assertion, do not allow every child into AP. Government schools do, in many cases, because they get increased funding for every child that participates. Many of those students don’t take the AP exam because of the negative effect it would have on the school’s pass average.
A large portion of private schools, however, do not flood the AP classes and attempt to limit them to those who have proven ability. Race or ethnicity or any attempt to make the class proportional to the school population should not enter into such a merit-based situation.