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College Board Kills AP Computer Science AB
jhealy1024 writes "The College Board recently announced it will be getting rid of the Advanced Placement Computer Science AB examination after May 2009. The 'A'-level exam will continue to be offered, though there is no word yet on what will become of the AB-level material (e.g., if it will be merged into A or just dropped). Many teachers of AP CS are upset about the move, as it seems the decision was made without consulting members of the CS teaching community. As one teacher put it: 'this is like telling the football coach next year is the last year you have a varsity team.'"
Doesn't matter much anyways. When I got to college the only thing that the exam would've given me credit for was a basic computer class. So I was forced into taking about four classes full of content that I had taken before. Two algorithm classes, a java class and a basic C class that was introduction to programming in general. It's just the idea that they teach as though nobody has ever programmed before. Things would work better if everybody was split into two groups.
I took AP CS A and got a 3 on it. When I applied into college they told me I should take the introductory course because most people who got a 3 on the AP test and skipped it would fail the next step up.
I skipped it and the next step up was extremely easy. When I was writing my review of that class I told them I could have learned almost everything they taught me in that semester in a week.
Just goes to show what trash the grader was on the AP test. They probably thought all of my lower case 'j's were 'i's, and probably marked me down for declaring new variables anywhere but the beginning of the function. To put it in perspective, a 3 is supposed to be the same as a C in college, yet I went through college never getting a C in anything and getting predominately A's and B+s in most CS classes- even the ones with a 90% failure/drop-out rate.
Part of it is that the teacher of my AP class, a female cheerleading coach (no kidding), was a decent teacher and could get you to learn a concept like new data structures or pointers in 20 minutes.
Having gone though several international high schools (located across Europe), they all offered CS A and AB.
When I finally took it (A, in Grade 11) it was taught as a combined A/AB class by the school's Director of Technology. It wasn't as formalized a most classes - we simply took over the computer lab and its whiteboards for our classroom - but it was small, intense, and with a smart group of people. We finished the AP spec about halfway through the year, so for the second half we just did a bunch of code projects, only one of which was the standard AP one (this was the year before they brought in the aforementioned god-awful fish tank project). Independently, when I went to (public) school in Canada, AP CS A was offered as well, with the usual caveat that the school board wouldn't pay the testing fees (but would teach a class on it).
If you say it's unavailable outside the US, you need to compare that against the availability of other AP classes - do you mean that the French national school board won't offer them, or that the American School in Paris won't?
Cue The Sun...
The article also mentions the possibility, in the context of the Italian course, of the program being continued if a sponsor could be found. Perhaps Mr. W. Gates and the other hi-tech moguls who are always bemoaning the lack of US workers, and crying for more H1 visas, could pony up a few bucks to support the CS course. I'm sure it would be chump change for Bill.
In my high school, AP classes don't exist. I'm supposed to be going to the best high school in my school district... but we don't get AP classes. It's called the inner-city.
This is a signature. Bow to me.
A number of the tests are offered at different difficulties, including Computer Science with the A and AB levels, and Calculus with AB and BC levels.
The College Board has announced that they're dropping four tests, three language tests plus the AB CS class. Since it was short notice with little consultation, and the AB test was the only one with any content that would really be considered computer science (e.g. data structures), teachers are up in arms.
The broader issue is that primary and secondary education vary enormously in quality and funding over the US. This is partly because different states want to do it differently (good), and partly because education is funded almost entirely out of local property taxes, so rich areas have super-schools, and poor areas have lousy schools (bad). The cycle reinforces as rich people move to areas with good schools.
Thus the complaint that only rich high schools can afford to teach AP classes, and AP classes are necessary to get into the best universities.
Oh, and varsity: in American high school and college sports programs, the Varsity team for a sport is the best team, which represents the school in competition with other schools. So if you're not very good at football, you might still be able to play on the Junior Varsity team, but probably not for the the Varsity team. Teacher is claiming that AB-Test-Takers = Varsity CS Team.
Fortunately, there will still be Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-ABAB-Start
I have a friend who teaches an AP science class at a a local high school. The high school produces about half the National Merit scholars in the county despite the fact it's a tiny school of some 200 students. The science department has battled the humanities department for years over whether to keep AP courses or not. The humanities would just as soon see them gone.
A year ago, the science department almost gave in when the AP organization required each teacher to explain in detail how they met the AP curricula requirements. That added another teacher work day to an already harried schedule. She typically works late into the night grading work and the last thing she wanted to do was to spend an extra unpaid work day justifying her course to the AP organization. She figured it was enough that her average student AP score is 4.8 - the hell with how she does it.
Adding more steps to any program guarantees you'll lose some participants. Perhaps that's what the AP board intended with their new regs.
AP exams are even worse than just limiting rural students. Students optimize their GPA by not taking non-AP courses. They won't take band because it is graded, but not honors. They won't take pre-engineering courses since they have not be honors certified. They take study hall instead. ???
:-)
I just recently realized I would have finished a few places higher in my HS class if I had dropped band and jazz band... I was apparently not sophisticated enough to think about optimizing my GPA. I like to think I ended up with more scholarships than most of the rest of my class because I was well rounded
I feel obligated to explain the above joke, because nobody with mod points got it in over a day of posting.
Without ab, I'd just be normal.
ab-normal?
IT'S FUNNY, LAUGH!
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.