By Megan Riordan
Staff Writer
The current course system that Mira Costa offers will prepare students adequately for college and allows for all students to excel in the classroom.
Currently, Costa provides students with academic courses greatly ranging in difficulty in order to reach both ends of the spectrum. Advanced Placement courses are available for students who want academic rigor and a fast-paced classroom. Honors and accelerated courses don’t provide the intense rigor of the AP courses but cover more material than the average College Prep course offered on campus.
Currently, Mira Costa students can take AP courses if they meet the requirements set by the classes’ respective departments. If they do not meet the prerequisites of the course, students are given the option to wave into the class with teacher consent, in most cases. Although many believe AP classes should be made more readily available to students, the AP courses are rightfully geared toward students who are not only academically interested but also capable of higher level thinking. Expanding AP classes to a broader range of students takes away from the academic rigor of the courses built by teachers and high-achieving peers.
The lowering of prerequisites to allow more students to participate would challenge the rigor of such classes and would hurt more capable students. According to AP and CP Physics teacher Jonathan Lewis, even allowing students into advanced classes based on waiver forms alters how he teaches his AP and honors classes. When ill-prepared students enter his AP class, Lewis has to reteach basic concepts of the subject, leaving his class behind schedule. This additional review is unfair for prepared students because it makes it nearly impossible for the course to stay on schedule and hinders the learning process of those who are well-prepared.
Instead of being overloaded with too many AP classes or being overwhelmed in a single one, students can be adequately prepared for college in a CP class. Mira Costa Principal Dr. Ben Dale has been taking great strides to make CP classes focus better on the “middle student,” and for kids that had previously been placed in basic classes, Costa offers courses like Student Academic Support for extra help. Between SAS and CP options, as well as more challenging classes, the entire spectrum of students that attend Costa is covered.
A wider acceptance of students into AP courses would increase the amount of students per class, giving students less individual attention by the teacher. With a decrease in attention, not only will students that are well prepared for the class and that have met expectations not receive the attention necessary to thrive in the class, but students who greatly struggle in the class will find it hard to keep up in such a course.
Furthermore, the honors accelerated courses that Costa provides like Algebra 3/4 with Trig, Accelerated English 3-4, or Honors Chemistry give an excellent chance for students to challenge themselves if they are not quite ready for a full-on AP curriculum. They are a also a good middle ground for students who take one or more AP classes and don’t want to be overloaded in every subject they have a class in.
CP classes at Costa have been proven effective. The majority of students fill their classes mostly with CP classes, and Costa’s Academic Performance Index in the last five years has seen consistent annual increases. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
In order to have a productive learning environment, AP and CP classes must be separated and be distinguishable. The maintaining of CP classes is necessary to ensure an effective, predictable and focused learning environment for all types of Mira Costa students.
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