Insiders Report on the Challenge Index

-- Louis Wilen Olney

At the time that the Challenge Index (CI) was created, the choice of such a rating scheme made incredible sense. The more desirable factor of looking at the number of high school graduates from a particular class who had graduated from college within six years might be a more meaningful number, but one that lays outside the scope of collecting realistically. Initially the CI was the result of good education policies. As it did not yet exist, it was not looked at as a goal, but as a result. Students elected to take these courses because they felt well prepared as a result of previous courses they had taken. At West Potomac High School in Fairfax County, the primary courses devoted to AP work were electives, being European History, senior-year science (mostly AP Biology) and senior-year math (AP Calculus or AP Statistics). In addition, most college-bound seniors took either AP English Literature of AP English Language. For courses like U.S. history and U.S. government, there were both AP and college-prep level courses.

As with many things, once you start making measurements, you change the paradigm. Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) rated well on the CI, but as competition increased, the county wanted its schools to measure better. Raising the CI became a goal. In addition, the new superintendent wanted FCPS to benefit college-going throughout by graduating as many seniors as possible with 5 or more AP credits. One way FCPS did this was to make the only college-prep-level course for English and social studies for the junior and senior year an AP course. In addition, statistics and calculus were taught only at the AP level. Fourth-year foreign language and Latin courses were primarily taught at the AP level. There are many students that benefit from this push, but FCPS has never been able to show that all, or even most, students benefit from this push. Many college-bound students would benefit from more developmental, but still rigorous, instruction in their junior and senior year. I seem not to be able to convince anyone on the school board of this supposition. On the other hand, no one in the superintendent's office has pointed me to a juried paper that supports their policy. I have asked.

-- John Dickert Fairfax County

As a teacher in the Bellevue (Wash.) Public Schools for the past 15 years, I can tell you about the "down and dirty" effects of the index on our schools. Because our superintendent prized an outside assessment like the AP, he has pushed for "all AP, all the time" throughout the district's schools. As a teacher at the International School, one of Bellevue's top-rated schools (and at one point fifth in Newsweek's list of schools), the effect has been disastrous. . . . We were hard hit by having to push algebra into the middle school. All of our students who completed four years of high school math, as we required, would be forced to take at least one year of AP math.

The junior English class is now required AP, with only kids with special education status able to opt out. All 10th-graders must now take AP World History, with exceptions made only for special-ed students. These additional requirements have all been made by administration, without concern for teacher, parent or student input. On average, I'd say our graduating seniors take six to eight AP courses prior to graduating. You might ask, what's so very bad about that?

We are shortchanging our kids' childhoods. Upper-middle-class parents are pushing their students harder than ever to be all they can be: in the classroom, on the ball field, in the community. High school has become a sort of anxiety-laden marathon, but all kids are not created equal. Adolescents do not possess the adult coping skills required for this nonstop work environment. They are, after all, still adolescents. It would be so nice if they had time to hang out [no, not by studying notes from AP history], just hang out, shoot some hoops, find some balance. I have no idea what the long-term effects of denying our kids time will be, but I fear it will not be beneficial.

Not all kids welcome or are adept at doing college work in the high school. If kids' working at a college level in high school becomes de rigueur, why don't we just put the little buggers in college? Why don't we put middle-schoolers into the high school? Why can't kindergartners take on middle school work? Developmentally, kids are individual souls who progress in a sort of lopsided hobble toward adulthood. By assuming that one size [in this case, AP] fits all, we have demeaned our students' very identities and individuality.

-- Linda S. Boxleitner Humanities teacher, International School Bellevue, Wash.