Column: Newport-Mesa math wars put advance placement courses in sharp relief

Last month the Newport-Mesa Unified School District abandoned its plan to drop some accelerated math classes after a parental backlash that appeared to take some school officials by surprise.

Prior to this latest kerfuffle, administrators and board members might have hoped they were back in a happy place after a string of controversies and missteps that had fueled a growing protest movement against district leaders.

Among those controversies was the Swun Math debacle, which culminated in the district finally dumping the flawed, unpopular curriculum, and then announcing a new plan that included getting rid of accelerated math classes for middle school students.

But the district backtracked after many parents once again rose up in protest against the new proposal.

Whatever mistakes were made by the district — and it is clear that there were errors aplenty — this latest episode also exposes issues that are deeper and more widespread than what’s happening in Newport-Mesa alone.

The local dispute over math instruction epitomizes a larger, more problematic reality that –– despite reams of research and case studies galore — we still haven’t settled on how we want to do education in this country.

Rather than evolving, slowly but surely, toward a more effective, equitable and reliable system, we too often find that education is a jumbled, incoherent mix of competing philosophies, dubious attempts at progress and unshakable dogma.

Take Advanced Placement. One of the reasons parents objected so strenuously to Newport-Mesa’s proposal to revamp middle-school math is that they feared their students would then be derailed from a path toward AP classes in high school.

The district tried to assure parents that their kids would still have access to such classes as AP calculus and AP statistics by senior year. But parents were unconvinced, I suspect in large measure because they worried about damaging their children’s college prospects.

This local drama is playing out against a national backdrop of turmoil when it comes to AP generally.

Some districts, particularly those in lower-income areas where opportunities can be scarce, have been striving to add more AP classes in order to give disadvantaged students a more competitive footing.

Contrast that with a small but growing movement to scrap AP altogether, a development that, not surprisingly, is largely occurring at elite schools in affluent communities where students would presumably not suffer any disadvantage from the loss of the classes.

The AP program was started by the behemoth College Board back in the mid-1950s, although it didn’t become commonplace until many years later. I had no idea what AP was until my kids were in school.

The idea behind AP was to make high-achieving students capable of accelerated learning more college-ready by offering them challenging, college-level courses, and then allowing them to earn “advanced standing” — i.e., credits — that could be applied toward college graduation requirements.

Today, AP is ubiquitous, having spread far beyond its original mandate. There are dozens of different subjects on the AP menu. Millions of students across the country enroll in these classes every year, and each spring they take the accompanying standardized exams.

High school students are now well-versed in the stressful annual ritual of deciding how many AP classes to take, and which subjects might keep them competitive in the college admissions game. Often the classes are taken not so much out of a desire to learn at a higher level, but out of fear of falling behind.

Yet it’s far from clear that AP is beneficial in the long run.

Critics say that AP courses are nothing like college, in that they emphasize rote memorization and a shallow understanding of the subject matter, as opposed to a deep, analytical approach — the breadth-over-depth argument.

They also note, quite rightly, that the quality of AP instruction is wildly inconsistent, and there’s conflicting evidence as to whether the classes actually lead to improved college outcomes.

There’s also no consistency in the way colleges deal with AP credits. Many limit the amount they apply toward college degrees, and a small percentage even deny outright all AP credit.

Unfortunately, AP is just one of many examples of an idea that has become deeply rooted in our education system without solid proof of its value. Some critics even believe that AP is, in fact, exacerbating inequality — the opposite of what is, or at least should be, one of our primary goals in education.

Now circle back to Newport-Mesa’s math wars.

It’s entirely possible that the district’s original plan for middle-school math was solid. Administrators may have done sufficient due diligence and based their decision on sound research.

Who knows? Because, unfortunately, this latest episode instead only served to reinforce the view held by many that when it comes to education we’re more or less making it up as we go.

Parents were understandably distrustful when, after years of doing things a certain way, the district suddenly veered in a different direction with middle-school math without clearly articulating why it thought this new system was better.

Even now that accelerated math pathways are back in, they might see little reason to rest easy.

When it comes to education, the problem isn’t that we’re flying blind. But we’re too often willfully, stubbornly short-sighted, and that keeps us stuck on the ground when we should be soaring.

Patrice Apodaca is a former Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She lives in Newport Beach.