Dartmouth Denies AP Credits

Jay Mathews with some good questions/points:

Most college professors rightly consider themselves part of an elite. They have doctorates. They have tenure. They’re special.

Few professors objected when the College Board’s Advanced Placement program began in 1955. It granted college credit for good grades on college-level courses taught only at elite high schools such as Exeter, Bronx Science and New Trier. Many professors’ views of AP have diminished now that the program is in more than 60 percent of U.S. high schools, including many where most of the students are low-income and low-achieving.

College professors tell me they don’t believe AP teachers can match the erudition and depth of published experts in their fields, like themselves. When I point out that many of the high school teachers they are complaining about have more experience and more demonstrated success teaching introductory college courses to teenagers than they do, they change the subject.

Almost all colleges give credit for good scores on AP tests because the program prepares students for the rigor of higher education and in many cases, according to research, teaches them more than they would get in college introductory courses. But a few colleges have succumbed to their faculty’s resentment of high school teachers showing them up.

The latest to do so has gotten extra attention because it is an Ivy League school. The Dartmouth College faculty, without considering any research, has voted to deny college credit for AP, International Baccalaureate and Advanced International Certificate of Education courses and tests, all taught by those high school teachers who can’t be as good as they are.

Dartmouth classics professor Hakan Tell, chair of the faculty committee on instruction that proposed the change, said the show-of-hands vote was nearly unanimous, though nobody bothered to count. Tell said the faculty decided that the high-school-taught courses did not match the quality of Dartmouth’s introductory courses and should not get credit.

The Dartmouth admissions office still strongly recommends students take AP classes. AP scores will still be used in course placement decisions.

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