Education?

I'm sure some of you have already read Wednesday's education section in the New York Times. The trouble with my getting into this here is that it might set off a rant. Well... maybe that's okay. Sometimes I might have to do that. That will save Matt from getting his ear chewed off too severely. I have an idea for an article, which I want to call something such as "To AP or Not To AP -- Is that the question?" Yesterday's Times had an article titled "Study Finds College-Prep Courses in High School Leave Many Students Lagging." (Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/education/16report.html?ref=education) The part that will get the rant going is towards the end of the article, where the author describes how in 2000 Education Secretary Richard W. Riley "announced a goal of having every school in the nation add an Advanced Placement course each year for the next decade." Then, of course, the article goes on to disclose how "most of Philadelphia's nonselective high schools did not have a single student who achieved a passing grade on any Advanced Placement exam."

Originally, I had thought my article would be about schools like Lab where there's some interest in thinking about what Fieldston says they do (although my question for them is how many kids still take AP tests... I am suspicious of what "giving up AP courses" really means), but now I am wondering whether there's something much larger here... something that could use the whole AP question as a metaphor for educational inequalities. Of course, as is obvious, these ideas need much more time in the oven -- and, of course, the larger idea in the article, as the title makes clear, is that students aren't prepared for college. Would love to know what others think of this article. There was also another good article about George Jackson Academy in Manhattan titled "A School Frees Low-Income Boys From the Pressures of the Streets." Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/education/16education.html?ref=education

Do write some comments!