
College Board drops AP comp sci & latin for racial diversity reasons - Alex3917
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/04/09/32ap.h27.html
======
edgeztv
Cutting these exams certainly won't get more minority students involved in
these subjects. Seems like a crude hack to improve the College Board's
diversity ratings. One is led to believe that they do not care about the
students at all from this statement.

~~~
shawndrost
Other articles indicate that the test was unprofitable:
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/04...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040303925.html)

Edit: "In the 2007 administration, 5,064 students took the exam."
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP_Computer_Science#Grade_distr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP_Computer_Science#Grade_distributions_for_AP_Computer_Science_AB)

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patrickg-zill
That's OK, the homeschoolers of today will be around in 10 years to start
companies and employ the others... if anything, you would think that AP Latin
would be easier for someone with a decent background in Spanish, as there is
much similarity.

~~~
daniel-cussen
Totally. Latin for Latin Americans.

------
pmorici
"“For us, [the question is], are we able to achieve our mission of reaching a
broader range of students?” Mr. Packer said."

If that isn't an ironic statement I don't know what is. The best way to reach
a broader range is to reach less? Maybe the AP needs a course offering in
logic.

~~~
scott_s
When funds are limited, you have to justify the cost of something with its
reward. This isn't an issue of "Not enough people are taking these courses, so
let's cull them." It's an issue of "We're spending a lot of money on very few
students. We can probably use that money to help more students."

I'm a CS PhD student. I think it's terrible that they have to cut some CS AP
classes. But I also understand that they have a limited budget, and a mandate
to help as many students as possible with that budget. It's easy to criticize
them for cutting classes we think are valuable, but we aren't faced with the
problem of trying to use a finite budget to cover classes in the sciences,
math, history, literature, languages and the arts.

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danielha
I went to high school in the Silicon Valley. AP Computer Science was a course
offered to upperclassmen. It was discontinued the year I had intended to take
it.

Instead, one of the new classes offered that fall was a dance class.

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mynameishere
An extremely minor offense, considering the range of things that have been
done in the name of holy diversity.

------
yters
The great thing about merit based society is that non merit based societies
crumble under their own incompetence. As long as the meritocracy can avoid
getting sucked down with the incompetents, it will rise to the top. If it
doesn't, is it really a meritocracy?

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amichail
Was this a strong computer science class?

Maybe it's best if students see less badly taught computer science while in
high school?

~~~
bilbo0s
I agree with that, teach computer scientists mathematics while they are in
high school, NOT CS. Have any other mathematicians out there had to review
mathematically intense papers written by CS students. Frightening isn't it!
How about we update the whole AP system and bring it into the 21st century.

AP Chinese or Japanese Literature courses are still being debated, but we were
teaching Italian Lit?

I think we should start giving our brightest young men a larger dose of
mathematics and Asia. They will work the rest out on their own if we give them
good fundamentals.

Incidentally, the idea that Calculus is an AP course is indicative of the
challenges facing education in the US. This course, and all of the math up to
it, should be required to graduate high school. AP should expect more, at
least differential equations, and I myself would be more comfortable if AP
required Advanced Calculus, (Real Analysis).

Some people think I expect too much. To them I would say look at the numbers.
China has more HONOR students than the US has STUDENTS, even when we include
the drop outs. Keep in mind that includes only their TOP students, their 'B'
students are excluded from that count, and a 'B' student in China would be an
honor student here. The luxury of educational tracking as we have known it is
one that is too expensive for us going forward. Time to raise the bar. It is
going to be increasingly difficult to address this issue through immigration.
Education is the only way out. All hands on deck. We should start to do what
it takes to get this done.

~~~
amichail
What's wrong with immigration? Don't many excellent Asian students want to
move to the US?

~~~
iamwil
They still do, but current American immigration policy makes it more difficult
for them to do so.

In addition, students from some countries are bound by their gov't to return
since the gov't paid for their full ride, they have to go back and work for a
couple of years. So sometimes, they don't end up staying here in the US.

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nickb
Another gigantic win for the US educational system. US system is so far ahead
of other countries' systems that they can afford to drop few useless courses.

/sarcasm

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Alex3917
The average 13-year-old white student scores better on the SATs than the
average 17-year-old black student.[1] This places minority students at a huge
and completely arbitrary disadvantage, since the SAT doesn't correlate with
academic performance at all beyond a slight correlation with GPA the first
semester of freshman year in college.[2]

And yet somehow I doubt the College Board is going to drop the SAT anytime
soon. Dropping AP classes "for racial diversity reasons" is like making Rosa
Parks the TV spokeswoman in the front to mask the secret eugenics program
going on in the back.

[1] It Takes a City: Getting Serious About Urban School Reform [2] C.f. the
academic research into the validity of the SAT on the College Board website.
(There have been plenty of popular press articles written on this too.)

~~~
pg
Is it really true that SAT scores don't correlate with academic performance?

~~~
attack
Well finger length correlates with better SAT scores. I propose that finger
length measurement replace SAT testing.

<http://www.livescience.com/health/070522_finger_sats.html>

Although I myself did well on the SAT's, I too am hesitant to support the use
of correlations like these in determining what students, or anyone deserves.

With regard to SATs and academic performance, the first google result:

"Findings indicated a very low correlation between SAT math scores and overall
college math grades of six graduating classes at one university"

[http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetai...](http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ317642&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ317642)

~~~
byrneseyeview
Finger length correlates with testosterone production, which correlates with
different ratios of mathematical to verbal skills. So it would tell you
whether to go to MIT or Yale, but not whether to go to Wash U or Forest Park
Community College.

You may enjoy this anecdote, in which someone _even more self-righteous_ about
such things makes a fool of herself:

[http://isteve.blogspot.com/2007/05/finger-length-and-sat-
sco...](http://isteve.blogspot.com/2007/05/finger-length-and-sat-scores.html)

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andreyf
I don't know about the language tests, but CS AB was pretty worthless - the
are two of them, the "AB test" and the "BC test" (not to be confused with
Calc, which has the "Calc A" and "Calc B" tests). CS AB mostly came down to
learning basic Java flavored OOP. Most of the time is spent on Java syntax and
searching for missing semicolons. The BC test actually gets into some
meaningful data structures and efficiency, but is still not really worthwhile.

In general, education seems to me to have very little to do with schooling,
and a lot to do with culture. Most of my "really smart" friends learned on
their own or from their parents. The ones who focus on learning things in
class just can't keep up with the self-motivators.

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aston
The racial diversity bit is clearly a red-herring.

~~~
Alex3917
I disagree. There are really two separate stories here:

1) Four AP courses are being discontinued

2) High schools are are redesigning their curriculums and dropping classes in
which minorities are either doing poorly or have no interest in taking. (I
know that just because there is no longer an AP test for these subjects
doesn't mean that schools are obligated to stop teaching the material, but
many or perhaps even most of them will. Esp. since high schools are ranked by
Newsweek solely based on the number of AP tests taken divided by the number of
students.)

In the long run, I think story #2 is vastly more important than story #1.

~~~
byrneseyeview
You should be careful about that "minorities" thing. Jews and Asians are
minorities whose test scores are above the national average -- I think they
would be very surprised to find that their collective underperformance was
somehow an issue.

I think this kind of debate won't be fruitful as long as we're afraid to say
precisely what we mean, and have to talk about 'diversity' or 'minorities'.
Look at the Harvard math department:
<http://www.math.harvard.edu/people/senior.html> . You've got Gottleib and
Hironaka and McMullen and Yau and basically all the proof you need that they
are pulling successful people from many backgrounds. They have a higher
fraction of _actual minorities_ than the rest of the country!

~~~
yummyfajitas
"Minorities" really means "non-asian minorities, primarily black/hispanic" to
anyone involved with the diversity bureaucracy. Jews are lumped in with
caucasians, and therefore do not count as diversity.

It gets worse.

Gypsies are caucasian/european. Gypsies are known to be genetically and
phenotypically non-caucasian. They also suffer from historic (and current)
discrimination. No bonus points for you, whitey.

However, a Brazilian of 100% European ancestry (who speaks no Spanish)
qualifies as Hispanic. This, in spite of the fact that his ancestors almost
certainly oppressed the natives/slaves, just like an American of Portugese
ancestry (who is white/caucasian). You get bonus points, Mr. Diversity.

Think it's nonsense? Are you a racist or something?

~~~
byrneseyeview
Good to know I'm (presumably) not the only Sailer reader here.

I know Gypsies are discriminated against, but I was under the impression that
they're also, uh, very criminal on average, and generally not well suited to
many modern careers (outside of entertainment, especially music, at which they
excel). I'm thus unsurprised that there is not a powerful Gypsy Lobby
agitating for affirmative action benefits, or maybe some sort of foundation
started by a wealthy Gypsy industrialist. (The punk band Gogol Bordello seems
to agitate for Gypsy rights, though. It's a start!)

I've heard that the Chinese and Japanese immigrants in Chile and Brazil are
also treated as 'Hispanic' for these purposes, even though they obviously
don't need a leg up in such matters. The same source mentioned that the
'Mestizo' ethnicity covers what people think of when they think 'Hispanic'. Is
that accurate? (This problem also shows up in racial crime stats; the FBI
rather promiscuously mixes whites and Mestizos, so it's very hard to tell
that, for example, white-on-black rapes are incredibly rare, at fewer than ten
per year -- because Mestizo-on-black rapes are more common).

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klutometis
I find this trend disturbing; but am at a loss as to how to formulate a
politically blameless response. Suffice to say, the converse is inconceivable;
and I fail to see how limiting the choices of minorities or majorities serves
either.

~~~
byrneseyeview
It's not a choice of just arbitrarily selecting some level of success for
various minorities. Some minorities excel, and you can either allow it or make
everyone worse off by banning it. For example, someone who cares about racial
equality might demand that blacks be prevented from competing in national
sports, or standup comedy, or political oratory, because they tend to excel in
these areas. This would deprive us of lots of great entertainers and speakers,
and it would create a more equal situation. But obviously the black people
don't benefit (they lose the jobs they want and otherwise would have); the
white audiences don't benefit (they get worse stuff to watch and hear); and
even the whites and other minorities who get the positions reserved for them
suffer -- they're out of their depth, and the painful difference between their
talent and their ranking makes them even less successful than they otherwise
would be.

This might have some sort of application to affirmative action schemes, or the
efforts to sculpt a course so it somehow doesn't discriminate among the groups
that are better or worse at it. But I'm not sure what that application might
be.

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pchristensen
AP CompSci was my favorite class in high school. It wasn't particularly
challenging, but it made me hate high school a whole lot less.

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keating
So the issue is a race condition.

