Something happened recently that doesn't happen very often. I disagreed with Jay Mathews.
His 9/26 column, "High School Barred Average Students from Taking AP" (the current link on the Washington Post doesn't work or I'd post it here), was about a high school that required students to have a 3.0 grade point average to take advanced placement courses. Now, the fact that the school dropped the rule after Jay asked them about it is admittedly suspect. But Jay's take seems to be that any kid who wants to challenge himself should be allowed into an AP course regardless of his GPA.
And Jay's post today offers "two accounts from people who suffered because of the still widespread and wrongheaded view that only top students should be challenged."
Here are my problems with that argument.
1. I agree that access to education is important. And any student who wants to be challenged should have a way to do it. But a lot of high schools just can't accommodate every kid who wants to take an AP class. If there's one AP US History course offered and 70 kids want to take it, you've got a problem. Having a grade cut-off is a necessary evil in a lot of schools.
2. Kids are under enough pressure to get into college today. Opening up AP classes to more students will just encourage the kid who got a B or a C in trigonometry to take AP Calculus because "That's what colleges want."
3. But most importantly, an AP class is absolutely not the only way for a kid to learn and challenge himself.
A kid who wants to learn about US history can take a class at a local community college over the summer.
A kid who wants to learn calculus can learn from an MIT professor for free without ever leaving the house. MIT's Opencourseware shares the actual MIT course materials, including lecture notes, problem sets, exams and occasionally video for almost all of their undergraduate courses.
A kid who wants to read classic works of literature can buy them from a used bookstore on the cheap. If you need help understanding them, hire a grad student to tutor you. Or join a book club. If you can't find a book club, you could join one online.
Of all the students I've known who were genuinely interested in a particular subject or idea, not one of them has ever abandoned the interest because he was shut out of an AP class. There are plenty of other ways to learn and challenge yourself today.