AP (Advanced Mediocrity)

Attending conferences as professional development can vary from snozzer to invigorating. Usually they are somewhere in between, and a teacher just has to glean as much as possible from the experience, information and materials. The one-day AP (Advanced Placement) Seminar last weekend was just such a mixed bag. What was most interesting, however, was returning to school this week and talking with the AP coordinator and AP English colleagues.

The foggy mists of uncertainty dissipate. Discussion makes painfully clear, once again, how NCLB ("No Child Left Behind") and the Colorado testing (CSAP) are driving public schools (because private schools are not required to comply) into mediocrity. Mediocrity?! How can a testing program set up to raise standards and hold public schools accountable for improving instruction (not education) for all students drive mediocrity?

Our AP program is a good example of the "accountability" forces at work. AP students are generally the more advanced students, usually reading, writing, and performing at grade level or above. Even though AP has been growing at a phenomenal rate, the system therefore regards these students as already successful, and resources are taken from such programs to be used for students needing more help to meet arbitrary testing requirements that are defined as "proficient."

[Colorado, for example, considers students who are "partially proficient" on the CSAP exams as not proficient. But, for federal purposes of meeting Adequate Yearly Progress, "partially proficient" is considered "proficient." Figure that one out.]

These forces drain more challenging programs of teacher positions, money, materials, and most importantly of commitment. And these same forces also drive lower performing students into irrelevance (at least for now) since no matter what the schools do with a student in 9th grade achieving at the 3rd grade level, they will not be testing as proficient any time soon, if ever. Thus, once again, draining remedial and special education programs of teacher positions, money, materials, and most importantly of commitment.

So, it is quite unexceptional to see that the focus becomes the middle students whose scores can be most improved faster and with fewer resources. It's the logic of the system. It's the simple logic of mediocrity. Without change, it is guaranteeing a broken public school system privatized and parted out to the lowest bidders. And, still, with the logic of low bidding, the mediocrity will not change.