EdObserver

When our daughter was considering colleges in her junior year of high school, we took her to visit thirteen different campuses. With all that experience, when she went to college our daughter became a campus tour guide. Tour after tour, the frequently asked questions are universal: the mothers of daughters ask about the quality of the food in the dining hall, while the mothers of sons ask about the quantity. But no matter where you are, if you are at a university, most groups of parents ask the same first question: how many classes are led by graduate assistants?

In other words, they are apprehensive about the validity of their child being taught a college course by a graduate student who is only a candidate for a PhD. I sympathize. Tuition is steep. Most college educations are financed with loans. Do any of us go into debt to have our kids taught by anything less than professors? The truth is we do. Most university freshman will be in at least one class in some way graded, if not taught, by a graduate student. But this question isn’t driven by money, or the value of a dollar. It is the quality of the “learning” that concerns most of us.

So a graduate student at a university – one who has been accepted by the school your child has chosen to attend as worthy of being considered for a doctoral degree – is not your choice to teach a college course. Then what about your child’s high school Math teacher, or Physics teacher, or Western Civ…, most of whom have never been considered for a PhD?  Aye, there’s the rub.

There is a good argument for an “advanced placement” program in America’s high schools, but not for the reasons we currently accept. The concept of a program that standardizes honors courses for high school students is a great idea. On our thirteen campus visits, most admissions presentations spoke to high school juniors about how their applications would be considered. To a person, each speaker indicated that a “B” in an AP course trumped an “A” in a standard college-prep class, because it was proof that a student was willing to make the stretch, and cared enough to take the really tough courses. With a standardized final exam in place, colleges would know how one student stacked up against the pack. And they’ll also know which high schools are really teaching the subject to its kids.

The distribution of test scores says volumes about a school and its students. It would provide an agreed upon standard of education for our best and brightest. An “A” in an AP class followed up with a “5″ on the AP test is a true achievement, an achievement worth acknowledging. Colleges could use it for a real advanced placement. A student could skip a freshman survey course, and take an advanced level course, prerequisite satisfied, – with a real professor, and real college-level discourse. The AP course would be used for placement, not credit.

The current argument in favor of pushing kids into high school AP classes (sometimes as early as sophomore year) is the concept of saving money by entering as freshmen with credits under their belts. But colleges charge full-time students by the semester, not by the credit. Only students who enter with a full semester of credits save money by knocking off the last semester. They can graduate in January and save the additional tuition, room and board. But if we throw out the credits, students will still be able to get more education for their money, because with no need to spend time on “Intro” courses, they will be able to tackle the tougher course in each of their AP subjects. In four years of college, AP students will still get more “bang for their buck” – in real college courses, with real professors, and college-level discourse and research. They can take graduate-level courses in their senior year and get into the top graduate schools. Our kids are there for a quality education, right? Not just the diploma, right?… perchance to dream.