“Power of 15″: Higher Education Bubble sign or Reynolds’ Law?
In principle, I agree with the concept: instead of having an AP English class, create a dual-enrollment class of sufficient rigor that it’s transferable as a college course, through the supervision of the community college. Same with Calculus, or any of the AP science or history classes. Then the student is evaluated on their work product over the course of the semester rather than the outcome of a single exam.
But this approach? It won’t truly expose the student to the rigor of a college class, if a semester of learning is stretched out over two. It won’t even be at the level of rigor of an AP class, with their math offering being no more rigorous than other math classes offered at the high school level. And their requirements for enrollment in these classes — a minimum of a C average, plus certain qualifying scores for Composition and the math classes, and high school geometry — certainly don’t promise much rigor, but seem to treat these as interchangeable with any other high school class in terms of skill and preparation level. It would be far better to master “high school level” coursework first, rather than enrolling in classes solely for the sake of having some items labelled “college credit.”