
A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam - lawyao
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-0103-lopez-yom-teacher-20160201-column.html
======
ejcx
This article is strange. Unless something has changed recently, AP exams do
not have a concept of pass or fail. You get a score and colleges can choose to
give you college credit based on the score.

I got a 1 on the AP Calculus exam but colleges wanted a 3 or a 4 or a 5
depending on their requirements to give me credit for college calc. So I have
no idea what it means to have everybody 'pass'.

I have no doubt he's probably an exceptional teacher. That AP Calculus test
was really really hard when I took it a decade ago, but the metrics don't make
any sense to me

~~~
userbinator
_So I have no idea what it means to have everybody 'pass'._

That reminds me of this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_systems_by_country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_systems_by_country)

It's interesting to see where the 'pass' bar is in different countries. I've
always found the 50% mark, which seems quite popular, to be rather unusual
since it implies that someone who 'passed' essentially was correct on only
half the material tested (which is then a fraction of the material actually
taught), and in any other setting a 50% failure rate would be completely
unacceptable.

~~~
Rylinks
I have had many tests where the material tested is not a strict subset of the
material taught, and some problems require creative generalization or insight
during the test.

~~~
pandler
I had this too in Mechanical Engineering, especially on exams where you have
e.g. an hour and a half to solve 5 problems and more so as you take higher
level classes. There would often be room for interpretation in the questions,
and part of the problem was to make sure you're making the right assumptions
about the system.

I remember one test in particular in a class about heat transfer where one
question was essentially "Same problem as the previous question, but now
assume <something less simplistic>". My answer was something along the lines
of, "Whoops, I already made that assumption in the previous question. Extra
points?" The professor was kind enough to grant me a few bonus points.

------
srtjstjsj
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-
point/wp/2016/02/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-
point/wp/2016/02/10/this-teenager-is-one-of-12-students-in-the-world-who-aced-
the-ap-calculus-exam/)

> Nearly 2.5 million students took a total of almost 4.5 million AP tests
> overall last year. Of the test-takers, just 322 obtained every point
> possible on an AP test, and perfect scores were logged on 21 of the 36 AP
> exams. Here’s the breakdown of those perfect scores:

67 in Computer Science A

55 in Spanish Language and Culture

54 in Microeconomics

36 in German Language and Culture

22 in Macroeconomics

16 in Studio Art: Drawing Portfolio

12 in Calculus AB

11 in Calculus BC

11 in Physics C: Mechanics

7 in Japanese Language and Culture

7 in Studio Art: 2-D Design Portfolio

4 in Chemistry

4 in Psychology

4 in Italian Language and Culture

3 in U.S. Government and Politics

2 in French Language and Culture

2 in Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism

2 in Statistics

2 in U.S. History

2 in Studio Art: 3-D Design Portfolio

1 in Latin

\-----

Surprisingly low numbers, considering how many hundreds of students ace their
calculus tests in college.

~~~
jasonjei
I took AP Latin: Vergil in high school. That was one of the hardest classes
I've ever had to take because the grammar is so complex (I'm also not
surprised Japanese has few perfect scores). I know I didn't get a passing
score.

I'm surprised however that Chinese has no perfect scores. I remember some
students that had moved from Taiwan or China would take AP Chinese to get free
college credits. The grammar of Chinese is so simple compared to Latin or
Japanese. And from what I recall, AP Chinese tested Mandarin at a 2nd grade
level, and didn't test much or any of the _chengyu_ (成語: Chinese proverbs) of
which are difficult because of the shear number to remember.

Perhaps graders could tell they were native speakers, and thus raised the bar?
(I took 3rd-year Chinese as a filler class "language requirement" in college
and the professor expected high-school level of Chinese while she expected
chicken scratch from others for the same grade.)

AP Computer Science seems likely to have a good number of perfect scores. I
remember a test reviewer telling me that they often overlooked syntactical
errors (unbalanced parentheses) and would allow API calls to incorrectly
labeled API functions. (I don't disagree, because CS is more about
understanding data structures than it is knowing how to put code on paper
without an IDE or reference.)

~~~
mahyarm
I wouldn't be surprised that a native speaker would do something one way, and
a test would insist the 'correct' way is actually pretty awkward and wouldn't
be used.

~~~
SoreGums
This... In Vietnam seeing some (as a 30yr old native English speaker) of the
"correct" answers to VN made English homework or tests is interesting to say
the least. The questions are so awkward, pretty sure the only reason the
students able to deduce the answer is because they have been taught vn-English
so it makes sense to them ;)

------
quantumsequoia
Is this that unusual? I'm sure there are many teachers out there whose entire
classes passed.

I'm pretty sure in high school, my entire class passed. It was unusual for
people to fail APs. (My high school only admitted the top 2% scorers on an
admission test, so it was biased towards high exam scorers.)

~~~
all5AP
Yeah, I'll second that. I know at my high school (a private one) the AP Chem
class had all 5s for 10+ years.

~~~
solipsism
All 5s on the AP Chem test for 10+ years? Absolutely not possibly. If it
happened there would be many news stories about it.

~~~
epmatsw
I think you underestimate some private schools. At least at mine, high level
APs would have only 10ish specially approved students with a professor who'd
taught the class forever. Our calc BC professor had supposedly only had 3
non-5s in his decade or two of teaching the course. Besides that, if a
professor suspected you wouldn't pass, you would just be asked to not take the
exam. Don't think I ever heard of someone actually failing one.

------
protomyth
In the 1987, I took the afternoons of my senior year and went to the local
community college since we got 3 credits a semester free and paid only
$15/credit after that. Students are still doing that here (now its considered
dual HS / College credit). AP classes just don't make sense in that context,
and I would imagine if a student in a podunk high school on the reservation in
the 80's could do that, it must be more common at decent high schools.

~~~
brandonmenc
I went to a Catholic all-boys high school and many of us walked to the
Catholic college a few blocks away to earn college credits. I'd say the top
quarter of my graduating class started college as Sophomores or better.

From the other end, the Catholic grade school across the street sent some of
their 7th and 8th graders to take classes with us at the high school.

This was in the mid-90s.

------
josinalvo
I am not sure if such clean-looking, new-looking classes are standard in the
US, but it gives me a tad of skepticism... Is this school in an affluent
neighborhood?

~~~
kepano
I used to live in the neighborhood (Lincoln Heights). It's a lower income,
primarily latino neighborhood of Los Angeles. I've never visited Lincoln High
School but it's a public school.

[http://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/neighborhood/lincoln-h...](http://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/neighborhood/lincoln-
heights/)

------
gonzo
My son attends LASA in Austin. His calc teacher has a 97% rate for his
students scoring a 4 or 5 over 15 years. This includes a few students who
didn't take the test.

(My son got a '5' on the BC calc AP.)

------
jakub_g
Side note, FYI some embedded ad redirects me to the scammy "fix your Android"
thing full of alerts and vibrating the phone. This has been a nightmare on
Android recently, happens more and more even on high profile websites. Time to
reconsider Firefox Mobile and put and adblocker I think...

~~~
stephengillie
Whitelisting JavaScript is an okay solution for those not willing to switch
from Chrome just yet.

------
wkdown
The "how" is quite lacking.

~~~
jobu
Seems pretty clear to me:

 _Yom says he keeps getting asked if there 's some secret recipe for getting
students to perform at their highest potential.

"This may sound corny, but you really have to love them," Yom says. "You build
this trust, and at that point, whatever you ask them to do, they'll go the
extra mile. The recipe is love."_

Basically it comes down to soft skills. If people think you care about them
they will care about what you want and think and help you achieve things
together.

~~~
ktRolster
Which would explain why new 'systems' like common whatever, pushed from the
top down, aren't the best way to improve schools.

Which is like forcing programmers into a forced Agile system....it's better to
focus on improving the skills of the programmers.

The guy in _Stand and Deliver_ was similar.

~~~
acbart
Common Core, in theory, isn't a problem - unifying standards across schools
has a lot of benefits (easier to design reusable curriculums, perform
scientific inquiries, develop software). The problem is when it gets conflated
with high-stakes testing, which is a terrible thing.

~~~
burfog
High-stakes testing need not be terrible. You just have to be careful:

1\. High-stakes testing requires exam security. One must assume that the
teachers and administrators, if rated on student performance, will assist
cheating.

2\. High-stakes testing should be spread out across the year, with the result
being a running average that discards the low values. (sickness and other bad
luck should not be punished) Instead of a week or two of solid testing, do an
hour every other week.

3\. Tests should not come from companies that sell textbooks. This is a
conflict of interest. It's not good to have an incentive to use non-standard
terminology to give an advantage to schools which purchase the matching book.

4\. If you can't test something, and you don't mandate hours for it, it will
be removed from the schedule. Ideally you'd test for everything, but testing
some subjects (band, shop) is difficult. The hours must be mandated to protect
the untestable subjects.

5\. You get what you test for. (see #4 above) High-quality tests are a must.
It shouldn't be practical to cram for a test.

~~~
acbart
You did not talk about the necessity of unlinking the results of high-stakes
testing and the funding for schools/teachers/districts. Or at the very least,
to not penalize low-income areas for low test scores by stripping their
budget, since that will only make the situation worse. If anything, more
resources should flow to areas with lower test scores, even though the
opposite happens (or they just flow to charter schools, which are not a great
idea either).

Look beyond the mechanical aspects of the problem, and consider the
ramifications of testing within the education system as a whole.

------
quantumsnaggler
But how did you come up?

~~~
dang
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11697262](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11697262)
and marked it off-topic.

------
rajacombinator
AP Calc is kinda trivial, anyone taking it should pass ...

~~~
chillacy
Last year, 42% didn't: [http://www.totalregistration.net/AP-Exam-Registration-
Servic...](http://www.totalregistration.net/AP-Exam-Registration-
Service/2015-AP-Exam-Score-Distributions.php)

~~~
rajacombinator
Wow that is surprising.

~~~
chillacy
If you're surprised by this, then your mental model of the world isn't
correct. Might be time to re-calibrate your expectations if you (like I
admittedly did) went to school in a nice neighborhood where 90%+ get a 5 in
calc AB.

------
samstave
There was a movie about this in the 80s

~~~
kristopolous
Stand and Deliver? Different person, different school.

~~~
SolderMonkey
different person, different school, different time, but similar situation:
dedicated individuals inspire students to believe circumstances better than
where they grow up, and strive for them

oh, and similar communities. I could have gone to Garfield, the high school
from Stand and Deliver, but opted for Lincoln, when I grew up in this area

~~~
kristopolous
Same subject too!!

------
ben_jones
It's been awhile but the AP exam for me was nothing but rote memorization. You
memorize how to solve n types (10? 15? 20?) of problems and then you grind
through the test a) identify what type of problem it is b) apply algorithm to
solve.

Furthermore the AP exam environment, IMO, varied by the school giving it. I
could have easily stored formulas in my calculator (for the calculator
section), I could have easily colluded with classmates, and if my teachers
wanted to, they could've easily given me the answers. It was a bit of a joke
really. Multiple phones went off during the exam, no penalties were given
(which I agree is the right approach, but it does say something about the exam
itself).

The prestige of the AP program and the experience of taking a number of AP
courses has contributed to my declining respect for our higher education
system really.

~~~
SolderMonkey
In the framework of 'a) identify what type of problem it is b) apply algorithm
to solve', how many freshman college classes (what the AP classes try to
emulate) don't work within that framework?

While I believe our primary and higher education systems could use a lot of
work, I think the AP program is at least respectable as a stepping stone into
higher education, especially for communities where higher education isn't a
norm or accessible.

------
lbenes
I’ve traveled to Europe and Asia and it’s saddening to see what a difference
they place on the value of Education/teacher compared to us. NC is ranked 48th
in the country and willing to give away almost a billion dollars in federal
funding over the right to bully transgender individuals.[1][2] Then we have
Texas spending 64-million on a _high school_ stadium.[3]

How did we get into this mess where our culture values sports over education?
How can we get out of it?

[1]
[http://bigstory.ap.org/article/19cce15048484abcac18c836f8c0b...](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/19cce15048484abcac18c836f8c0b241/north-
carolina-governor-leads-lawsuit-over-lgbt-rights)

[2] [http://abc11.com/education/survey-calls-nc-the-worst-
state-f...](http://abc11.com/education/survey-calls-nc-the-worst-state-for-
teachers/329440/)

[3] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2016/05/11/a-texas-
hi...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2016/05/11/a-texas-high-schools-
planned-63-million-football-stadium-thats-an-800-lbs-gorilla/#42731cd33b37)

~~~
Spooky23
Travel to New York. We spend a fortune on students and teachers. Outcomes
vary, and usually have more to do with home situation than money.

