It's AP Test Result Season!

“Back in my day…!”

(Listen to this post)

Our household recently received good news from the world of child measurement and assessment: our daughters took three AP exams between the two of them and passed all three. This includes a perfect 5 on a history test and a passing grade on what I consider to be the most difficult science: Chemistry! So let’s hear it for girls succeeding in science, which is something I take seriously. (I received the lowest passing grade possible on my high school’s state chemistry exam—to this day, I believe some of those points were gifted to me).

I’ll quickly point out my hypocrisy: I have always criticized the value of standardized tests, yet here I am reveling in the success. I’ll plead negative capability and say I can hold this contradiction in my head. My happiness comes from seeing the hard work that was my daughters’ preparation (a ton) and their pride at seeing the work pay off. The cause and effect are not lost on them: they understood the level of work required, as this is something we have reinforced in many areas of their lives (as you might imagine, not always with ease). Plus, they get college credit and thus are off to a good start given the pricing levels in higher education. If necessary, I am prepared to take out second mortgages on my organs to send my little ones to college.

To anyone reading who happens to have children, I keep recalling the saying, “Do you want your children to be better off than you?” The answer has always been an unequivocal “yes.” In terms of AP testing, they already are. Why? Because I, the proud possessor of a PhD, failed the only AP exam I took. My children revel in this fact.

I should qualify this by saying that my hometown’s public school system has always been rocky, with the state once having to step in and take over the Buffalo Public Schools from the city. For example, flaunting all fire codes, the school used to chain shut gates across the fourth-floor hallways to keep students from trying to leave the building—while we were in class! The most famous “graduate” of my high school is Rick James (a close second is Bob Lanier). When your most famous alum dropped out of high school to become the Super Freak and have a legendary music career, it’s hard to be critical of his decision making. “Super Freak” is an underrated professional field for which there is no standardized test. 

Not only did I fail the only AP test I took (I believe it was history, which I later received a degree in), my entire senior calculus AP course was actively discouraged from taking the test. On the first day of class, our teacher’s opening words were, “None of you aare smart enough to take the AP exam, so we’re just going to focus on getting you through.” This was not offered as motivation or reverse psychology. He meant it. None of us knew any better, so we simply accepted his pronouncement and none of us took the AP exam. I received an A in the class, though I’m not sure I ever completely solved a single problem—I was the partial credit king who could solve about 90 to 95 % of every problem before the Newtonian wheels flew off my brain wagon. This same teacher was also the cross-country coach. When we won the city title senior year (the only team I was ever on) he refused to let the full team take the stage together at our annual sports assembly—he said only the few runners who qualified for state could go on stage because they were the ones “who earned it.” 

That’s pretty much how my schooling went. I was an unevenly motivated student who wouldn’t fully understand the desire for knowledge, and the work required, until I started college at a too young 17 (I submitted only two college applications because my mother insisted). As you would expect with someone like me, and this is pretty much a cliche now, my English teacher saved my life. I stand by that to this day. Mr. Feinstein. He’s pushed me to write creatively and to read and read some more: Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dandelion Wine. If there was ever an equivalent to “the force” in Star Wars, that’s what reading became for me, the only difference being that it was mastering me, not the other way around. Without Mr. Feinstein, I don’t think I would be where I am—the alternative is dark and without much of a happy ending. I’ll spare you the details.

When we were seniors, Mr. Feinstein cried, a lot, during our final class as he offered goodbyes (we had him for both junior and senior year). What we didn’t know was that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. My goal was to publish a book one day and give it to him. Then he was gone. I put my first book in a Ziplock bag on his grave that had yet to be marked with a headstone. 

This is why when my children ask me questions like, “When you were in high school, did you…” then naming something they are participating in, my most common response is “We didn’t have that when I was in school.” 

So my children have far surpassed me, and I am thrilled. They play instruments, sing, act, win prizes, get nominated for things, read difficult books, write poetry, interpret and analyze the world, make films, volunteer in the community, are socially conscious, and they are people who see the further acquisition of knowledge as essential to their future. 

Yet… what do you do with these standardized test results in a society turning away from much of the knowledge that informs them? After all, we tend to focus on the scores, not so much on the knowledge that we believe should be standard and thus shared. Our children’s school board is slowly being taken over by the type of folks who ban books and interfere in curriculum. My daughter got a 5 on her European History AP exam—the course involved deep engagement with the history of fascism and World War II. My daughters knows what authoritarianism is and are fully aware of our nation’s political moment (they really do love history). If writing is thinking, then getting this far in a post finally brings me to the realization: it’s frustrating to see my family be more successful than me in great social institutions at a moment when we are dangerously close to undoing them, instead prioritizing affiliation and ideology over knowledge and the pursuit of truth, no matter how uncomfortable or critical. Yes, maybe this has always been the case, but this moment feels different.

When will we de-standardize the undeniable reality that the Civil War was fought over slavery? It is vital we never forget that fact. When will we falsely standardize that the Founding Fathers meant for our government to be a theocracy? When will NATO be erased from view as one of the most stabilizing forces of the Cold-War era? Will we remember that women once had to fight for the right to vote, especially if that right, like many others recently, were to disappear or be “left up to the states”?

The thing about AP tests is that all scores look the same. The number 5 looks like all number 5’s. My 2 looks just like every other 2. What doesn’t look the same is the knowledge beneath that number’s umbrella, the knowledge we believe should be shared among our citizens. Given recent events—yes, I write this knowing about yesterday’s assassination attempt and the sleight of hand required to modify the noun “violence” with the adjective “political”—I am again feeling despair for what is to come.

Maybe this is something all of us feel in some way. We celebrate our personal joys and successes, as we should, then check back in with the world and again see dark clouds on the horizon. I would love to know how people mentally cope with this.