As a teacher of AP U.S. History I am writing to express my frustration and disappointment as pertains to CollegeBoard’s redesign of the 2015 exam.

 

My frustration began last year as I attempted to prepare students for the new exam. While teachers were told how the exam would be revamped, many of the materials we received – for example, the Course and Exam Description and especially the rubrics for the DBQ & LEQ – were simultaneously too vague and too specific.

 

 

 

After attending the summer conference in Philadelphia, I was (temporarily) relieved when I received better direction and clarification about the redesign, but in the Short Answer session when the presenter mentioned that even he wasn’t sure of the proper way to draft a response, I was floored. Furthermore, when I conferred with fellow APUSH teachers who attended an AP Summer Institute at a nearby university, we were astounded when we “compared notes” to find information in stark contrast of itself.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, we all took solace in knowing that our students’ relatively leaden performance – and our mounting frustration – were shared problems.

 

 

 

What is more, CollegeBoard provided little – if any – significant resources to help with the redesign. Specifically, and at a minimum, CollegeBoard should have provided teachers with a test bank of (hundreds) of multiple choice questions and numerous DBQ, LEQ & Short Answer questions from each of the nine periods. However, since this was not afforded us teachers have resorted to forming support groups on Facebook® and the AP Teacher Community to support one another. Regarding the latter, while AP may have facilitated the means of assistance, it has done virtually nothing to actually aid teachers with implementing the redesign.

 

 

 

As an entity that demands preparation, adherence and understanding of its students, CollegeBoard has failed to lead by example in this respect. With all due respect, CollegeBoard has done a  miserable job at communicating expectations, providing resources and setting uniform standards of performance (in fact, the e-mail of November 5 I received announcing a change in timing of the short answer, free response and DBQ sections only validates my point.)

 

 

 

Many teachers, myself included, have resorted to teaching the redesign how we “think” it should be done. As a teacher I feel insulted; as a subscriber to the AP® curriculum, embarrassed; and for my students, well, they have whatever compassion AP will allow me to offer.