College Board cuts AP Comp. classes because of enrollment

[I D Shukhov]

www.washingtonpost.com/wp...03925.html

Quote:AP Language, Computer Courses Cut
In Significant Overhaul, 4 Underenrolled Classes Won't Be Offered in 2008-09

By Daniel de Vise
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 4, 2008; A04

The College Board told U.S. teachers in an e-mail yesterday that four underenrolled Advanced Placement courses will be eliminated after the 2008-09 academic year in the first significant retrenchment of the college preparatory program in its 53-year history.

College Board leaders, anticipating that teachers might fear additional cuts, said they have no plans to discontinue any of the other courses in its AP program, which offers twice as many tests as it did 10 years ago.

The courses being cut -- Italian, Latin literature, French literature and computer science AB -- are among the least popular in the AP portfolio. Italian, introduced three years ago, has attracted 1,642 students and 305 teachers nationwide, one-fifth the number who expressed interest before it was created, AP officials said. Courses in French and Latin literature serve 2,068 and 3,771 students, respectively. The most popular AP subjects, including U.S. history and English literature, reach hundreds of thousands of students each year.

The eliminated classes are "all less commonly taught disciplines in high schools," said Trevor Packer, vice president of the College Board for AP. "And they're under fire sometimes," he said, in school systems more focused on core subjects.

Quote:Trustees of the New York-based College Board decided to eliminate the courses March 27 at a meeting in Reston [Va.], Packer said. The decision was communicated at 5 p.m. yesterday via e-mail to 2,519 teachers of the affected subjects and to AP program coordinators.