I just read today in Washington Post.. that many school districts are eliminating AP classes because they cause inequality..

This is so misguided as to boarder on stupidity.. Education is about teaching. That it… everything else is secondarily..

I speak as someone who repeated 4th grade.. in the following years.. I was the kid taken out of class to receive special help..

In High School.. took a test to see my aptitude to take foreign languages.. and was told ‘you have no ability to learn a foreign language.. ‘ and I was able to take an untimed SAT exam..

In college my first year my teacher said to me ‘ you are wasting your patents money you should not be in college’ I say this to establish a backdrop to say ‘ I was in no danger of being in an AP class.. but I was always glad that kids were able to take these classes.. as I wish I could do the work..why did I feel this way.. simply school was about education..

While I was not able to take AP classes say in English.. I remember going to book store and buying the classics. I remember buying and reading for my own pleasure, Moby Dick, Plato, Father and Son, author Theodore Dressier, Dante among others.. why did I buy and read and attempt to read such books.. because they were considered classics.. so my brain thought.. they must be worth reading..

As I though.. even if I can’t take an AP English class. I can still read or attempt to read the material.. maybe it because I was driven by a love of learning.. learning not to get a grade, but to dive into another world.

When I was just visiting a room the lady said that in her school the fifth grade teacher no longer give out grades.. why? For the same reason that schools want to eliminate AP classes.. the misguided idea that AP classes and grades create inequality..

The world in better when many kids read the Odyssey.. while not every kid can read Homer. Nothing is gained when no kid will read them and when we aspire to read no more than the great book ‘Of Mice and Men’ while a classic it is no Homer’

Teachers ought to inspire all kids with a love of learning.. we undermine this when we say ‘ we ought to eliminate AP classes because such classes create inequality. ‘ this is not an onion piece. This was a leading sentence in an article today in the Washington Post.