Stop Letting High-School Courses Count for College Credit

A friend sent this link to a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled, "Stop Letting High School Courses Count for College Credit." For you A.P. Psychology teachers, I thought you might find Michael Mendillo's perspective interesting. I found it alarming. His basic premise is that high school courses cannot provide the richness of experience or expertise that is found at the college level. Here is a passage from the article:

"Lost to these nonscience students is an exposure to cutting-edge science and the methods of science taught by professors active on a daily basis in their exploration of nature. In how many AP classes in high school does the physics instructor say, "At the last American Physical Society meeting, one of my students presented a paper on this very topic"? Or, in an astronomy class, "My upcoming observations using the Hubble Space Telescope will address this dark-energy issue"? Identical scenarios exist, of course, for science and engineering students who miss out on university-level introductions to the humanities and social sciences taught by active scholars in those areas."

The problem I have is that he is assuming that all college faculty are "active scholars." I don't mean any disrespect to college faculty, but not everyone is teaching general education courses at a research institution or has the opportunity to look "through the Hubble telescope" as it were. It also seems that many general education classes are taught by adjunct professors or lecturers that may not be engaged in the type of scholarship that he is describing.


If you have time, you'll find the link to this article below. I'd be interested in your thoughts of Michael Mendillo's position of the value of Advanced Placement courses in high school.

http://chronicle.com/article/Stop-Letting-High-School/130183/















Kristin H. Whitlock