Yes, I keep “dropouts” in school, and the Challenge probably isn’t for them. The idea is to encourage students to take AP classes as part of the school culture.

Rigor is hard to spread. I appreciate your care.

Dennis

If you can get students to “accept the challenge” who wouldn’t before, God bless you.

What is a “continuation high school”? I’m guessing it’s a school for people who have dropped out and then decided that they want a degree but don’t want to go back to the place they came from.

Obviously the Challenge Index is far from perfect, but only about 6% of schools even come close to it! If 90% of the schools were on it, then scamming it would have to be thwarted.

Let’s just try to get people to use it. It’s easy to understand, and the other indicators I encounter are not even understood. In California, ask what API and AYP even mean. The only way people use to improve them is to teach multiple-choice questions daily. Is API and AYP better – more accurate. Come’on. Don’t let a “false best” be the enemy of the better.

Best wishes,
Dennis

I teach math and science at a continuation high school. You are preaching to the choir, but I also see the old Ken Kesey maxim: “You’re either on the bus or off the bus.”

We must strive to keep people on the difficult road for as long as possible. This is a difficult judgment and policy works poorly here. Pressing students to achieve has value, but letting them succeed differently (where I come in) when they leave the road is vital and humane. More students graduate because of me than any other teacher by far in my district. Very, very few finish college. That’s ok, but schools need to strive to keep students from my off-road. The Challenge Index using AP probably is the best way to push the system to keep students on the road.

Merry Christmas!

Taking a lot of rigorous math in high school correlates with success in college. Playing high school basketball correlates with height. But no one would think to say that the way to make people taller is to make them play basketball. People who are going to do well in college because they are motivated, have good work habits, accept a challenge, and are fairly bright are the ones who take a lot of rigorous math in high school.

But the math courses don’t make them succeed any more than playing basketball makes people tall. The causation largely goes the other way.

Making more people take rigorous math in high school isn’t going to do much good at all.

And preparation for college is certainly not the only job of a high school. I don’t like the smell of all this.