For example, a student-led petition calling on Trevor Packer, the head of the AP program, to retract the decision, had as of Wednesday well surpassed its original 5,000-signature goal. history to another course, they contend, will do little to ensure that that part of the human story-which one AP World teacher in Michigan, Tyler George, described to me as “some of the most rich, diverse content of the entire curriculum”-remains a priority.Ĭritics have been voicing their concerns via in-person forums and social-media platforms. history.īut an emerging group of teachers and students is appalled by the prospective shift, and in recent days has set out to stop it. What’s more, Goldberg said, most colleges reward the small minority of students who score well enough on the exam with credit for a single semester-long course-typically one that covers post-1450-A.D. In rationalizing the AP World changes, the College Board spokesman Zachary Goldberg cited survey and performance data suggesting that too many students and teachers drown in the information overload and ultimately fail to gain value from the course. The organization plans to funnel the remaining 9,000-plus years of history into its brand-new Pre–AP World History and Geography curriculum, part of a suite of pre-AP classes that are designed to prepare all students for college and will be launched this fall. As of the 2019–20 school year, the organization will administer an AP World exam that’s significantly narrower in scope, assessing content only from 1450 A.D. Now the College Board, the nonprofit testing company that runs (and earns close to half its annual revenue from) the AP program, has decided that the course as it stands is, in fact, too intense. This content, which the curriculum divides into six periods, is typically covered over the course of two sequential college classes. and ends in the present-more than 10,000 revolutions around the sun later.

The time span that the course’s curriculum covers is as expansive as its geographic focus: The material includes history starting around 8,000 B.C.

Yet AP World, as it is colloquially called, is a special breed of intense. Like any Advanced Placement course, AP World History is intense, requiring students to absorb lots of sophisticated, detail-laden information in a relatively short amount of time: usually, a single year of high school.

Ap world history trevor packer