Public education matters, whether you're a student, parent, teacher, administrator, employer, or taxpayer. Although you undoubtedly know something about public education, you may be unaware of important facts about the U.S. educational system or may be surprised to learn how things have changed in recent years. This edition of "A Public…

This presentation suggests methods for selecting teachers and students for high school advanced placement courses, presenting the course material, and preparing students for examinations. It also discusses some materials that can be used in an advanced placement English course and considers some problems of curriculum revision that can arise when…

Criticizes Jay Mathews'"Newsweek" article ranking the 100 "best" American high schools by a Challenge Index dividing the number of advanced placement/international baccalaureate tests taken by the number of graduating seniors. Clifford Adelman's research on good academic content and good teachers provides more useful criteria.…

This article reports the findings of the first audit of Advanced Placement (AP) courses. One of the more striking effects of the audit, the results of which were released recently by the College Board, was a steep drop in the number of schools offering Advanced Placement courses. After more than 30 years of steady growth, the number of schools…

Several major universities are not granting academic credit to students who pass the College Board's Advanced Placement Test in Computer Science. Issues related to this trend and to the teaching of computer science in high schools and in colleges are explored. (JN)

This guide is designed to help Minnesota high school students in their educational planning by describing the policies of colleges and universities in Minnesota regarding college credit for Advanced Placement (AP) examinations in high school. The AP policies of most Minnesota institutions of higher learning are represented in this guide.…

Described is the Advanced Placement Program in Studio Art which encourages in-depth involvement by basing one-third of its requirements on the student's demonstrated ability to select and develop a project which makes greater demands than the usual assignment. This special project phase is described in depth. (KC)

Colleges have three types of admissions criteria: challenging course work, grades, and college admission test scores. Staff at a huge North Carolina high school found that offering challenging advanced-placement courses helped students get into selective colleges and graduate from them. The program benefited the entire school population. (MLH)

A problem with the construction of an inclusive definition of international education is that the word 'international' has a variety of connotations. It is proposed that the term 'international education' is ambiguous because it appears to refer to contrasting usages in educational studies. International education is frequently discussed in the…

When the author started as a geography teacher in an International Baccalaureate School (IB world school) 10 years ago she noticed more than a few analogies with the so-called "McWorld"--a term invented by Ritzer (1993, 1998) to refer to the global invasion of McDonald's Restaurants--and the IB world. More recently, geographers and…

This article examines the issue of fostering vocational knowledge from an international perspective. It is based on the belief that 21 st-century students would benefit from a study of human endeavour that has an intercultural foundation. It identifies the aspects of knowledge that may be seen to comprise vocational knowledge and uses one…

This booklet discusses the need to expand advanced placement programs for high school students and gives some examples of programs that are giving more students the opportunity to take advanced placement courses. The greatest challenge is to increase the numbers of poor and minority students taking Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate,…

A high school teacher at an inner-city school characterized by a multiethnic student population discusses his Advanced Placement (AP) European History course, an option in the school's PACE (Program for Additional Curricular Activities) program. Teaching strategies leading to the students' high performances on the AP exam are identified. (DB)

Argues that students lack an understanding of how research is done. Proposes a science exercise that provides authentic research experience for ninth-grade students in an advanced-placement chemistry class. (CCM)

Distressed with their district's lackluster performance on Advanced Placement (AP) exams, staff at Oklahoma City Schools reviewed the program and decided the curriculum was not challenging or motivating enough for students. They then developed and implemented a vastly improved AP program initiative that provided teacher incentives, staff…