LITTLEJOHN: AP Gov deserved clearer communication

Unweighted credit news should have broke sooner

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(TAYSIA DEMESA/EYE OF THE TIGER)

JAKE LITTLEJOHN

Students who decided to take AP government this year made a big mistake. Heading into the school year, students were told they would receive weighted AP credit for both terms. This is simply just not the case. Currently only the first term of AP gov’t will receive credit and not the second. The question the students need to ask is, why weren’t we told this would happen?

It turns out, a lack of communication failed to inform students that they would not receive weighted credit. Many things needed to happen in order for AP gov’t to get credit. The University of California system, college board, and the RJUHSD district all need to approve of this. So what is the problem? The problem is that the UC system and College Board don’t care whether AP gov’t gets five or ten points towards students’ GPAs, but the Roseville Joint Union High School District does. So if the district knew that AP gov’t would not receive credit this year, then why not just communicate with the counselors to notify the students.

Before we start looking at how AP government can receive credit, we need to look at the previous problem. Why weren’t students notified that they would not receive credit? For the students who are in the class now, they are basically stuck in a bubble and have no way out. They have the decision to drop the class, but that doesn’t look good, or just continue with it, keep doing AP-level work and hurt their GPA.

I just don’t understand why students were able to sign up for an AP class but not get the full credit. For some students, knowing whether or not they would receive a grade bump would definitely influence their decision on taking the class. Why are we finding this information out now?

Teachers, RJUHSD, and colleges all agree that the second half of AP government deserves AP credit, but what is this talk worth when there is opposite action? This is not fair to the students or the teacher to have to go through while not knowing if they will be receiving credit. The teacher doesn’t know whether they should be making it difficult or not and the students have no idea what will happen to their GPA after the class.

University of California system, and college board have both declared that there is no problem receiving AP credit for the second term of AP government. So why are students not receiving a bump?

If I knew at the beginning of the year that I would not get a bump for this class, there is no way I’d sign up. I would have taken the common CP government, got a good grade and got out of there.

When signing up for an AP class, the main question students think about is who the teacher is, how long is it, and whether or not the student will get AP credit.

This year, in the second term of AP government, one of those three listed is not going to work. Why would a student want to take a class that is the difficulty level of AP, but not get the actual credit? Thanks but no thanks.
If the class does not receive a grade bump, that is fine. The material should be much easier and the class should be less stressful just like a common CP class.