Insiders Report on the Challenge Index

I love the list, not least because we have been moving up and it can be noticed by parents, community and even bosses!

-- Stephen Williams College counselor, Eagle Rock High School Los Angeles

Let me say first that I am a friend of the Index. I think it is an excellent way to capture the intellectual and academic tenor of a school. As it happens, I have two sons who enjoy a challenge. And I believe that schools should offer that to any student who shows the desire to learn more and dig deeper. In some cases, it requires "outside the box" thinking -- schools need to put forth a "yes is the answer, what is the question?" attitude when thinking about these things.

Case in point: For many years, amongst its 20-plus AP offerings, Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda offered AP National, State and Local Government as a year-long class for sophomores. The general buzz was that this course was a good way to get your feet wet with the AP; as I understand it, the course is only a semester at the college level, but in the high school, they took a whole year to teach it. It was seen as a good introduction to the nature and rhythm of an AP course. My older son took it as a sophomore.

By the time my younger son was a freshman, Whitman had begun offering the course to freshmen. Whether or not this was a response to the overachieving competitive nature of the school community is unknown; what I do know is my son wanted to take the class. He did, and he enjoyed it and did well. Halfway through the year, we moved to Bainbridge Island. At the high school here, the same course is offered only to juniors and seniors; indeed they were not sure what to make of Dylan and his desire to complete the course. A meeting was held, and an exception was made, and he was allowed to finish the year. (For what it's worth, he got a 5 on the exam). However, as I understand it, that exception will not be made again -- the course is only available to juniors and seniors. Period.

-- Victoria Wilson Bainbridge Island, Wash.

I took 12 AP courses in my time at H-B Woodlawn in Arlington County. In fact, senior year I only took AP classes. I did very well on most of the tests and entered Georgetown 20 credits ahead of my classmates. Because of this, I was able to take a lighter class load each year, which allowed me to pursue other interests and opportunities: sports, internships, jobs and classes that seemed interesting but I didn't need to take. I also just took an entire semester off (what G-town calls "a leave of absence in good standing") to volunteer abroad (just got back from Ecuador!). Because of my AP credits, I will still graduate on time. And I saved a lot of money.

I also think that I learned more from my AP classes at H-B than I would have learned in intro courses in college. Well, mostly. Let me put it this way: I probably would have learned a lot more, and much harder, information taking Intro to Whatever at Georgetown than taking AP Whatever at H-B, but I would have forgotten it as soon as the final exam was over. I still remember a ton of what I learned in my AP classes, because of the way the teachers involved us in the material. Also, I took things that I never would have otherwise taken, just looking for challenges. For example, Dave Soles encouraged me to take his AP Chemistry class, even though I hated (and considered myself bad at) science. I ended up acing the class, getting a 4 on the AP exam and loving every second of it.

-- Rebecca Shinners Washington

The Challenge Index helped me point to a need for additional faculty training at Edison High School in Fairfax County. Edison is an IB school, and the training for IB teachers is more rigorous and expensive than that for AP. The school's index seemed relatively low, and when I, as academic chair for the PTSA, asked about, this I was told that they needed more trained faculty to be able to expand their offerings. The principal, Luke Fennell, immediately dedicated resources to train whoever on his faculty wanted the training (he had a large grant from a local business). And the number of trained teachers grew a lot, as did the number of IB students and the Challenge Index, too. The benefit went beyond IB, as those trained teachers also taught non-IB courses. The Index led directly to improving the skills of the faculty at Edison, which helped all of its students.

-- Dick Reed Fairfax County