Hollister
– While honors students at San Benito High School prepare to
take the advanced placement tests in May, their teachers will be
preparing for their own rigorous adjudication process.
Hollister – While honors students at San Benito High School prepare to take the advanced placement tests in May, their teachers will be preparing for their own rigorous adjudication process.
The advanced placement program, which provides college-level honors courses to high schools across the nation, is performing a nationwide audit of all instructors who teach AP courses. Eighteen teachers at San Benito High School will be included in this audit. They will need to submit syllabuses and other documentation to the College Board proving the validity of their AP courses.
This is the first audit of this type to take place since the program was launched in 1955.
“This is a positive thing because it standardizes the level of rigor,” said SBHS Director of Education Services Cindy Cordova, who will be overseeing the audit at the high school. “You want to make sure across the nation that if you’re taking an AP calculus course that it’s the same one everywhere.”
The audit came out of a concern among colleges that schools may be designating more courses “Advanced Placement” than are actually worthy. There has been a huge increase in the number of students participating in AP course study over the past decade, and many more students have been using AP courses to improve their attractiveness on their college applications.
Previously, the only way to compare AP classes was by examining AP test scores. Some teachers at San Benito High School say that is not always the most effective method of comparison.
“I think that students who are good test takers do well regardless. With any assessment, you need multiple assessments,” said Renee Edwards, who teaches AP environmental science.
Collectively, San Benito High School students typically perform below the statewide average on AP exams.
According to the California Department of Education, in 2006, there were 1,300 students at San Benito High School enrolled in AP courses. Of those, 325 students took AP exams. SBHS had a 45.9 percent pass rate compared with 56.3 percent statewide.
Despite the time-consuming nature of the audit, San Benito High School teachers hope it will help show the validity of their courses.
Chuck Schallhorn, who teaches AP psychology, said he estimates putting together all the documents and analyzing his course will take between eight and 16 hours.
“One of the nice things it does is it forces a teacher, regardless of how long they’ve been teaching the subject, to articulate it to an independent source,” he said.
All AP teachers will need to submit their audit materials before June 1 and be approved by the College Board, which runs the AP program, if they wish to teach AP in the fall.
Alice Joy covers education for the Free Lance. She can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 336 or at [email protected].
