Considers the reasons Advanced Placement (AP) English teachers might give for their literature selections. Suggests eight works for further reading outside the canon for AP and Honors English Teachers. Lists and gives annotations for 10 "new or overlooked" Young Adult books worth reading. (SG)

During the last 25 years, there has been a serious effort by scholars and teachers to introduce race, gender and ethnicity into the United States survey. While courses and curriculum have been transformed by the integration of race and gender, how much progress has been made integrating immigration and ethnicity? Considering the current atmosphere…

The National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) is considering creating a National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for world history education. On the surface, a national assessment in world history appears to be a sensible and essentially unproblematic decision. However, problems lurk below the surface challenging the creation of a…

A trend is emerging to open enrollment for honors and AP classes to all students who wish to take them. Teachers of these open enrollment classes may be facing several dilemmas. How can the high standards and academic rigor of the course be maintained? How can students who struggle to learn be supported in their endeavors to keep up with the…

In this article, the author discusses the trends of advanced placement classes in American high schools. At Sharpstown High School, advanced placement classes have long been reserved for the academically well-to-do. Other students, a majority of them poor and members of racial or ethnic minorities, never considered the rigorous, college-level…

In light of the established validity of the pendulum as a topic in physics curricula (Matthews 2000), the study looked at the place of pendulum motion in the physics curriculum of the high school in Israel.The data is available through presenting results of the nationwide matriculation examination in its units of Mechanics and Research Laboratory…

The Challenge Index ranks high schools according to how many students take AP and IB exams, not on how well they do or how many pass. This index is published in Newsweek and the magazine calls it "America's Best High Schools." In this article, the author, also the creator of this index, answers some frequently asked questions about the index and…

A decade ago the Advanced Placement (AP) program was introduced into the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Initially, schools embraced this opportunity to provide their students with opportunities that were previously unavailable. However, within a few years the AP program was relegated to urban and large regional high schools. Few…

This article outlines a study conducted in Finland and Portugal into the reasons why International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) students choose particular Experimental Science (Group 4) subjects. Its findings suggest that interest, enjoyment, university course and career requirements have most influence on students' choices.…

In the year 2000, the Texas Education Agency and the Texas A&M University System teamed up to create an initiative called the University Faculty Fellows Program. Spearheaded by Texas A&M International University in Laredo, the program paired up faculty from the university with area Advanced Placement (AP) teachers in a variety of…

Despite the national, state, and local emphasis on academic progress and standards, the curricular needs of the 3 million highly talented and gifted youth in the U.S. generally have not been embraced as a priority. In many high schools, academically precocious students are expected to progress on their own. The Individuals with Disabilities…

Students of color are consistently underrepresented in honors and gifted programs nationwide, and even high-achieving students share many of the risk factors with their low-achieving peers. The study presented in this paper employed mixed methods to investigate the relationship between the design of a rigorous college preparatory program, the…

If a student writes two essays, the score reliability can be estimated from the correlation between essays. However, if the essays are in different modes or require different skills, the reliability may be underestimated from the correlation. In Advanced Placement history examinations, students wrote one standard essay and one essay that required…

Findings of a follow-up study that examined the experiences of 1991 high school graduates of the Center for the Arts and Sciences (CAS) program in Saginaw, Michigan, are presented in this paper. A survey mailed to 33 graduates received 16 responses. Findings indicate that all respondents were enrolled in a school, college, or training program. The…

College students who have had Advanced Placement (AP) English in high school often present motivational or other problems for instructors of first-year college composition. These students often resist instruction or have difficulty working successfully in writing groups with peers. However, often these students' work is not outstanding or even…