High school teachers of Advanced Placement courses have until June 1 to submit their syllabi to the College Board for approval as part of an initiative launched this past January to ensure material in AP classes nationwide is taught consistently.
College Board spokesperson Jennifer Topiel said this decision was made to provide teachers and administrators with guidelines that must be in place for AP courses to ensure AP teachers have the resources they need and to help admissions officers better assess the difficulty of a student's curriculum.
Under this new measure a teacher must submit his or her syllabus for the College Board's approval in order for a course to be designated as AP on a student transcript, Topiel said. If the College Board does not approve the syllabus, the teacher has two more opportunities to submit his or her syllabus for approval.
"What's been happening is that some high schools have been calling courses AP when they really aren't," Dean of Admissions John Blackburn said.
For example, Blackburn saw on a transcript last year that a student had listed an AP study hall, which is not an official Advanced Placement course.
Such inaccuracies can confuse those reviewing the applications, especially if admissions officers are new, Blackburn said.
"I'm a trustee of the College Board," he said. "I made a recommendation last year that we survey the schools to make sure they're covering what they should be covering ... We want to know the rigor of the material and how it's being taught."
Blackburn said he hopes that by having the College Board look at AP teachers' syllabi, students across the country will be learning what is expected of AP students.
"We would like to think that the AP that's taught in Richmond is the same one in Denver," he said.
Rosa Motta-Bischof, a high school AP Latin teacher and member of the College Board's development committee for the AP Latin exams, said this new initiative will not affect the way she teaches her classes.
She said she does not expect AP scores to increase due to the change, nor does she expect to see a change in the number or caliber of students taking AP courses.
"The curriculum is really not harder, there are just more checks and controls over it," Motta-Bischof said.
Blackburn said there has been a good deal of anger among high school teachers in response to this decision.
"I can appreciate that, because teachers are overworked and underpaid, but if they have their syllabus, I think most of the good teachers aren't going to have any problems with this thing," he said.
Topiel said this review will have minimal impact on high school students, unless one of their classes is not allowed to carry the AP designation any longer after its syllabus is reviewed. These changes will be in effect for the 2007-2008 academic year.
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