AP is thriving in Florida. That’s not a good thing.

Source: Florida and Advanced Placement: Why the state has so much affection for the curriculum.

AP courses are, apparently evil: training students to pass a test that yields college credits (and not having to take some courses in college) results, perhaps, in less demand for college English and history instructors:

As the history profession dies and undergraduate humanities majors decline, it would be a shame if a testing company cut into the remaining budget for scholars to research and teach in this field.

She seems unaware that students may take AP courses in chemistry, biology, mathematics, physics, statistics, computer science and more. Her opinion column argues job security in her field (she is an English teacher with a doctorate in history) should be the criteria in having or not having AP courses.

AP or IB coursework is a key component in a school metric called “College Readiness”. On a score of 0 to 100, the best schools score in the 50 to 100 range. My kids’ high school scored a 19, yet that was in the top 20% of high schools in the state. My oldest says just 25% of the graduating class went on to college in the fall – where nationally, over 40% go on to 4-year colleges and another 20% go to 2-year colleges. Schools scoring high on the readiness metric see an overwhelming majority of their students start college.

There seems to be a strong correlation between AP/IB course availability and future college attendance. But AP courses are now viewed as evil, apparently. How does this make sense?

My oldest daughter credits her AP courses with enabling her to have survived her first year at the university – AP courses are what taught her how to study, she says, which was more important than the subject.

Coldstreams