School lies to students, and students loose out on credits

[Dowew]

Saw this article today. This school put students in an AP class in order to pad their numbers of minorities taking advanced classes, but them balked at the cost of testing, so they gave them a "placebo" test (last years test) so they could obtain data on how many students passed.  The school principle now claims they never made the explicit claim that the students would obtain college credit for this course, therefore its not fraud. 

What do you all think ? 

https://www.news-journalonline.com/news/...D=ref_fark

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You can read the full report on this link

https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news...sia-county

[davewill]

Of course everyone assumed that taking an Advanced Placement course and exam would be worth college credit...that's literally what Advanced Placement MEANS. They flat out cheated those kids who put in tons of hard work.

[TheMaskedMutant]

Hmm, did the kids and/or parents have to pay extra costs for their students to attend the course? If not, then it sounds like they got some extra education for "free;" the knowledge is still quite useful. Now if I as a parent had to sink money into extra study materials and other stuff in order to support my kids taking that class, I would be very pissed that it did not culminate with the expected exam for credit.

Outside of that, it's a "meh" issue to me. Definitely an issue of poor planning, but I'm glad they didn't approve the $60,000 full cost of the exams in order to cover up the Principal's mistake.

[bluebooger]

"Mainland High School Principal Cheryl Salerno didn’t realize the course would give students college credit."

totally incompetent
fire her immediately

" Instead, Salerno paid for the official exam for 78 students at $142 apiece — a cost of about $11,000 — and the remaining 336 were given a previous year’s exam, made to look like the real one."

"My intention was never to ‘dupe’ anyone"

uh, yeah it was
the second you gave those students an exam you knew was fake was duping them

"“As we’ve gotten closer to the testing and submission deadlines, new variables and obstacles keep presenting themselves,” Kester wrote to Salerno. “This process has gotten much more complicated and I have had a greater role in planning how to keep the students blind to the testing than I expected."

but again, "My intention was never to ‘dupe’ anyone" LOL

seriously, fire her

[dfrecore]

First, that is completely cheating those students, and people should be fired.

Second, it's normally STUDENTS who pay for the AP exams, the school does not (or can but doesn't have to). I've not known any kids whose schools pay for it; there is waiver if you're low income, but it's not coming out of the school's pockets, it comes from federal and state grants.

Third, just to clarify, an AP COURSE is not college credit, it is high school credit, but can give you a full extra grade point on your GPA calculation (honors is usually 1/2 a point). An AP EXAM is how you get college credit, and should not be used at all to reflect how a student does in a course on their high school grade (and the scores don't even come out until July, long after the school year is over and grades have come out, and seniors have graduated). Not only that, but not all students take the AP exam who take the course, so you can't use it as your final exam for that course.

[davewill]

...
Second, it's normally STUDENTS who pay for the AP exams, the school does not (or can but doesn't have to).  I've not known any kids whose schools pay for it; there is waiver if you're low income, but it's not coming out of the school's pockets, it comes from federal and state grants.
...

I'm guessing that while students usually DO pay a fee, that there are costs borne by the school in offering and administering the tests that the principal didn't account for until too late. Or perhaps, the school didn't do their homework so that their student could qualify for the waivers. If somebody at College Board has half a brain, they would step up and offer these kids a make up opportunity in exchange for the positive PR.