Seven private schools in the D.C. area are planning to eliminate Advanced Placement classes from their curriculum over the next four years.

The schools say the program is not necessary for college-bound students. AP aims to provide high school students with experience in college-level coursework.

In a joint statement released Monday, the schools criticized the program saying it puts too much emphasis on memorization and that it has “diminished utility.” Thomas Toch, director of the think tank FutureEd at Georgetown University, says those private schools already have advanced curriculums and are serving high-achieving students.

But AP plays a crucial role as a “catalyst for raising the level of rigor in the nation’s high schools for low-income students, students of color and those traditionally underserved in American public education.” A pushback against AP, Toch argues, will not serve the majority of other students across the nation.

We examine the program’s utility. 

With guest host Libby Denkmann.

Guests:

Thomas Toch, director of FutureEd, an education policy think tank at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy in Washington, DC; former senior partner at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, a California-based education policy and research center

Christopher Gruber, dean of admission and financial aid at Davidson College, a private liberal arts college in North Carolina

Patty Carver, teacher at Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland, one of the seven schools that is dropping AP classes; she tweets