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Prologue

"…the ending end of all earthly learning being virtuous action…"

- Sir Philip Sidney

From its beginnings in 1856, when Lowell was established as the first public secondary school in California, it has been dedicated to a single, over-riding goal--to provide as good an academic education as can be found anywhere in the nation.

For almost a century and a half, its principal mission has been to prepare students for entrance to colleges and universities with the highest admissions standards, as well as to others with lesser such requirements. A survey of admissions officers confirms that Lowell's graduates not only meet, but most often exceed, the preparations of entering freshmen from other schools, including those from the very best of the private, preparatory institutions.

Whatever else Lowell does for its students, when the most serious of them complete their work at Lowell, they will almost certainly succeed in institutions of higher learning because they've already met the achievement standards established and maintained by generations and generations of earlier students. Lowell has never had to lower those standards to attract students, nor has it ever misled anyone as to the demanding nature of excellence.

A complex institution, the school is many things to many persons. Actually, Lowell est omnis divisa in partes tres, as Julius Caesar might have noted in the opening sentence of his famous Commentaries had he not been more focused upon Gaul instead. Even without Caesar's observations, it is possible-even credible-that Lowell can be described in several ways as so divided: First, it accommodates three areas of major importance to the student body:

the academic program
the athletic program
the arts program.

What they have in common is that each is dedicated to excellence, and graduates with major interests in each have achieved great distinction in later life:

Very briefly to note some of its more prominently referenced graduates:

in drama, Carol Channing of Hello Dolly fame
in basketball Tom Meschery
in jurisprudence, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer
in music, Teri Murai, conductor and Director of the Peabody Conservatory of Music
in baseball, Jerry Coleman of the New York Yankees
in football, quarterback Bob Lee
in politics Governor Pat Brown
in philosophy, Josiah Royce
in literature, novelist Irving Stone
in art, painter Richard Diebenkorn
in cartooning, Rube Goldberg
in sculpture, Alexander Calder
in business, William Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard
in science, Nobel prize-winner, Joseph Erlanger
in zoology Diane Fossey
in the academy, Richard Levin, President of Yale

And the list could well extend into the hundreds-or even the thousands--of those who have excelled in these and many other endeavors.

In virtually every field, Lowell graduates had distinguished themselves well before there was such a thing as advanced placement or honors courses. Although time has overtaken the living memory of many of these once-prominent men and women, other Lowell graduates have come along to take their prominent places in these same areas of achievement..

As stated in a summary of its learning goals, "Lowell High School will prepare its students to be pursuers of academic excellence…[but, as well]…contribute time, energy, and talent to improve the quality of life in their school, community, state, nation and world." And to a remarkable degree, they have done just that.

With the introduction of the Advanced Placement program to the regular curriculum in 1961, important changes came to Lowell. Although valuable to many students, some earlier elective courses were insufficiently rigorous to meet college entrance requirements. Some were dropped, while others were re-designed to qualify as Advanced Placement courses. Almost at the same time, Lowell created honors sections of established courses and added some newly-designed ones to a curriculum available only to those recommended for them. Thus,

the non-academic elective courses
the required courses
the elective honors and advanced placement courses

Thereafter, academic Lowell could be seen as BAP and AAP, or Before-AP and After-AP, because the introduction of the AP program profoundly influenced-and to a large degree altered--the character of the Lowell's college-preparatory curriculum.

As It Was

"Every child has a right to its own bent.
It has a right to find its own way, whether
that way seems wise or foolish to others,
exactly as an adult has."

- George Bernard Shaw

Alas! If this were ever so with American public schooling, it is no more. The gates are closed to those fields of learning where a child might roam freely, gambol on the greensward, pick its own path in the enchanted woods and follow wherever it might lead. The learner has fewer and fewer choices in the matter of his or her own learning. Wise adults-or so they deem themselves-do not trust the young to know what is best for them. So, their learning paths are chosen for them. Such flattened down and fenced in pathways might do for most--but not for all, not for all.

How we have come to where we are now, has been largely determined by the horrendous events of the past century-terrible wars, collisions of political tectonic plates, wave upon wave of changes that have left us weary of change and grasping for certitudes. In October of 1957, a little more than 10 years after the end of World War II, the Soviets launched the 184-pound Sputnik, the first artificial satellite sent into outer space. This event shocked the United States into the realization that Soviet science and technology were beginning to rival ours, which had developed rapidly owing to our overwhelming military needs. What we had not anticipated was the rapid recovery of a Soviet Union we had understood to be a basket case. It was a nation devastated by a war waged in large part on its own soil. It was, we had believed, a grievously wounded patient recovering in a convalescent hospital. Here at home, we could still feel protected from such devastation because insulated east and west by oceans, and north and south by cordial relations with our neighbors, Canada and Mexico. Had we grown complacent? Many had so concluded.

But almost immediately after the launch of Sputnik, our schools became the focus of a great deal of critical attention. Were we doing enough to prepare our students for higher learning and for the hard slog ahead to stay ahead of any potential rival, particularly in areas of fundamental research? But by 1957, the United States had overtaken Germany in the medical field, and with the help of German rocket scientists given sanctuary in the United States in 1945, the nation had developed a vehicle that would eventually land us on the Moon and place us ahead of the Soviets in those areas of science and technology. We had thought we had no rivals in the exploitation of nuclear energy and in the production of nuclear weapons, but again the Soviets demonstrated a surprising capacity to rival us even in this area of our well-advanced expertise.

Yet, prior to 1957, the year in which the Soviets lunched Sputnik, some who had been studying American education had concluded that far too many of our youth either failed to graduate or chose not to continue their formal educations after graduating from high school. They also concluded that the standard high school curriculum did not adequately prepare students for higher learning. Many had foreseen that in the technological future, there would be fewer and fewer jobs for drop-outs or for those with barely-earned high school diplomas.

In the 1950's, the colleges and universities had absorbed the shock of thousands upon thousands of ex-military men and women returning to school on the G.I Bill, or entering upon higher education for the first time. Older, and much more savvy than the traditional high school student, these were eager to get their training and degrees soonest so as to get on with their civilian careers.

Here and there, as with the Bronx High School of Science and Lowell, some schools were already committed to academic excellence and were, thus, in no need of drastic reform. For more than a century prior to the introduction of the Advanced Placement program, those who wished to attend Lowell-or Girls High before it merged with Lowell--were welcome to enroll. But year after year, only about 25 per-cent of Lowell graduates met the B-average requirement for immediate admission to such universities as Brown, Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, the University of California and others offering degrees up to, and including, the Ph.D. Although by far the majority of Lowell graduates in those years did attend a college of some sort, many were beginning to feel that the standard curriculum wasn't quite rigorous enough to prepare the majority for college-level work.

As early as 1958, the San Francisco Federation of Teachers submitted a report containing a list of suggestions for strengthening the curriculum at all grade levels. Though relatively modest, the report did note: "Many of the ideas incorporated in the report were recommended by classroom teachers long before Sputnik jolted American education out of its placid and contented orbit."

Finally, the San Francisco Unified School District did begin to note the growing demand for curriculum reform. It convened a panel of distinguished professors, three from the University of California and three from Stanford, to study San Francisco's secondary school curricula with a charge to recommend a more demanding program of studies for all. Their report did, indeed, greatly influence the San Francisco School District's subsequent decision to replace soft curriculum cartilage with solid bone.

Shortly thereafter, and without fanfare, the most significant and far-reaching development in high school curricula did reach Lowell-creeping in on all fours one might say-with no one having any notion as to how sweeping a development it would become. Hence, the arrival of the Advanced Placement Program.

As it Developed

"Of studie took he moost cure and moost heede."

- Geoffrey Chaucer

And this is how it happened. In the Spring of 1961, William Worley (a.k.a. Wm Yelrow), author of My Dead Wife, among other mystery novels, proposed adding Advanced Placement to the English curriculum. Agreeing to the proposal for the Fall semester of 1961, the newly-appointed department head and this gentle, soft-spoken, saturnine English teacher (a.k.a. Yelrow) taught the first two sections of Advanced Placement ever offered at Lowell.

However, prior to those offerings, the head of the English Department and Worley (a.k.a. Yelrow) were already teaching the first honors sections to be taught at Lowell. Then, shortly thereafter, in the fall of 1962, the state-supported gifted program, went into effect. The principal named English teacher Anne Wallach to head it, and in the spring of that year, math head Ivan Barker was teaching both Advanced Placement and honors sections, and Frances Dealtry, head of the Science Department began teaching a Chemistry honors class.

Although newly-designated as "honors" and "Advanced Placement," many such courses had already been taught at equally demanding levels by these and other teachers, precluding the need for a radical re-design of courses--or teachers. They were already in place.

The rapid development of both programs was owing to five factors:

a promise of state funding to help support the programs
the S. F. School Board's willingness to subsidize additional preparation periods
a student body able, and willing to enroll in a most demanding curriculum
the willingness of some colleges and universities to grant college credit for exceptional test results
Lowell faculty already equipped in the several academic fields to teach at college freshman level

Few schools in the nation were as ready as Lowell to meet the standards set by the College Board's course outlines and the rigor of the AP examinations.

According to the Board, the Advanced Placement course has two aims: to enable the student to "…enter a universe of knowledge that might otherwise remain unexplored in high school…" and by way of the exams…"the opportunity to earn credit or advanced placement at most colleges and universities [both here]…and in 28 other countries."

Further, it urges that all students willing to accept the challenge be considered for admission to the program. Lowell does honor that recommendation to the extent possible. Yet, those who do not elect to take the preparatory honors or Advanced Placement courses can still take the exams themselves-just as the program promises. Indeed, Lowell prevents no one from taking them. At $82.00 per exam, the cost can add up for those electing to take several, as permitted by the program. If families are hard put to come up with ready cash, they can pay in installments, but owing to the generosity of Lowell alumni, by way of the Alumni Association, no student has been denied an opportunity to take exams for lack of money.

These and the optional course outlines, are prepared by exceptional high school teachers and university professors and are read and scored by these same exceptionally well-qualified persons on a five-point scale-5, 4, 3, 2, 1-- corresponding roughly to the A-to-F grades with which students are already familiar. Passing is 3 or better and college-recommending is 4 and 5.

Early on, Lowell teachers Flossie Lewis, JoAnn Stewart, and Denis Rauchman among others, had gone east to read and grade them. Chemistry and math teacher and exam-reader Peter Dahl has also participated in the making of the exam as well as serving as a consultant on chemistry at College Board conferences. More recently, Ms Dorothy Ong , a current teacher of Chinese, has participated on a task force to formulate the blue print for the text(s) to be used in preparation for the AP test in Chinese scheduled for offer in 2007.

Thus, from its rather tentative beginnings, with only 16 Lowell students taking the English AP exam in 1962, to the more than 2,500 exams taken by Lowell students in 2005, the program has grown so considerably that it now requires the full-time management of Mr. Bob Jow, its head and coordinator, and his assistant coordinator, Ms. Rosemary Dacanay

As it is

"To spend too much time in studies is sloth."

- Sir Francis Bacon

"But to spend too little yieldeth him to another as his servant or sword."

- M. Englander

By the end of its first decade all departments, save Social Studies, were offering both. Initially, not a few teachers, including Social Studies Department head Ray Milton, were reluctant to participate because of their fears that the curriculum would separate into first and second class offerings. They were also concerned that teachers choosing to opt out be perceived as somehow less capable than teachers of the advanced courses. That concern persists to some degree, particularly as students are screened for some of the courses to insure that instruction does not slow to the learning speed of the slowest learner. This sorting process is consistent with the school district's decision to screen students for admission to Lowell in the first instance. Just as students from the middle schools must qualify by a set of criteria for admission to Lowell, so subsequently students must qualify to enroll in, and remain in, advanced sections of the curricula. None, however, is permanently denied an opportunity to qualify for them just as none is required to take them to meet graduation requirements or to apply for admission to colleges and universities of their choosing.

How many such courses a student should carry has become the concern of not a few students, teachers and parents. As one student put it recently in the school newspaper: "Like many others, I am a victim of taking too many AP's. My first two weeks of May were crazy; I had four days of testing, three of which were taken in a row, two of which had both morning and afternoon sessions. Was it worth it? No."

On the other hand, another student wrote in the same issue, "As a 'college preparatory' alternative high school, Lowell should not hold back students by imposing an AP limit." The stresses upon some are quite evident, but careful counseling and screening could go a long way toward a realistic assessment of just how much would be too much for the individual student. The entire matter might best be handled on a case by case basis. When necessary, decisions could be made with the active participation of parent, student, teacher and counselor should there be any question as to a student's ability to carry the load he or she proposes to carry. A one-size policy would seem to be too drastic a solution to a real, but manageable problem.

Just how successful has the program been at Lowell? From the beginning to the present, statistics tell part of the story, but only a part. From only two sections of two AP courses offered by one department in the fall of 1961 to 72 sections of 23 AP courses offered in the spring of 2005 in all the academic departments, the growth of the program has been no less than astonishing. The same can be said of the supporting honors program, which grew from two sections of two honors English courses in the spring of 1961 to 51 sections of 20 honors courses in the spring of 2005.

Similarly, growth in the number of exams taken by the students is well beyond that of all but a handful of participating schools in the world.

In 1962, 16 Lowell students took an AP English exam.
A decade later, students took 244 exams in a number of fields.
By 1982, students were taking 399 exams.
In 1992, 796 exams were taken.
In 2002, more than 2,000.
By 2004, Lowell ranked fourth in the nation with 2,488 exams taken in 24 subject areas, with a 90% passing rate,
Most recently, in the year 2005, Lowell students took more than 2,500 exams with even more to be taken in 2006.

Perhaps the most significant statistic of all is the passing rate. Consistently from 1974 on, it has remained, with but very few exceptions, at 90% or better--a truly remarkable achievement by Lowell students and their assisting teachers. If measured by the number of exams taken, the numbers of students taking them, numbers of honors and AP courses offered, and the 90% passing rate, the entire program is a smashing success. But, then, given Lowell's selected student body, excellent teaching staffs, and supportive administrators like current Principal Paul Cheng, why anything else?

Summary and Evaluation

"In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir, nothing but Facts!"

- Charles Dickens, Hard Times

If this were the sole aim of Lowell's curriculum, and if the Advanced Placement program had been in full accord with schoolmaster Gradgrind's views, the game, as they say, wouldn't be worth the candle. Standardized tests associated with the "No-Child-Left-Behind" Act do tend to limit themselves to an appallingly narrow concept of the role of education in life. As asserted by Charles Dickens's Gradgrind, this parody of the school teacher as totally insensitive taskmaster, nothing matters but fact, fact, fact. But the truly educated won't settle for such a meager assessment of the aims of education. Standardized Advanced Placement tests do indeed attempt to assess a student's grasp of fact; but they're not mere tests of memory. They quite properly emphasize the student's ability to think about--not simply recall--them. In the course work and in the exams themselves, students are required to reflect upon their studies and present their own ideas about them in writing. To a greater or lesser degree, depending upon the nature of the subject matter, subjectivity has a place in the grading of the exams' essays, just as it has in the teacher's presentation of course materials and in his or her own grading practices. But just as subjectivity in learning and grading should respect the limits of such an approach, so should objectivity.

To the Gradginds of the world, "Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else." Lowell has never bought into this dismissive, pinch-mouthed view of education. Were the teachers required to use only the materials produced by the College Board, and were the courses designed solely to prepare the students to take and pass the exams, the program would not serve to advance the higher goals of education. Schools can do better than this, and Lowell does do better--a whole lot better.

That the College Board also takes a broad view the entire AP program is much to its credit. For instance, the "Annotated Course Outline" in Biology clearly states that the emphasis should be upon the meaning and significance of the facts, not upon the facts themselves:

"Questions on AP Biology Examinations can be expected to test students' ability to explain, analyze, and interpret biological processes and phenomena more than their ability to recall specific facts."

As they've developed over a period of years, Lowell's honors and AP courses do try to advance a major part of the school's primary mission. As stated in its "Expected Schoolwide Learning Results"; 'Lowell High School will prepare students to be…creative and critical thinkers who apply higher order thinking skills to problems and issues across the curriculum [and] develop abstract and/or physical models to solve problems.'

Just as in the pre-AP years, the post AP-years have seen Lowell graduates rise to prominence in their chosen fields. Nationally-recognized writer Naomi Wolf, for instance, greatly valued the AP courses she took at Lowell. They also assisted in the later successes of Eric Cornell, Nobel Prize winner in physics and Joan Abrahamson , President of the Jonas Salk Foundation and others far too numerous to mention. But what is most significant about Lowell's total academic program is to be seen in the letters published the Lowell Alumni Newsletter.

In edition after edition, letters from alumni and alumnae tell the tale of Lowell graduates fulfilling their ambitions in the world of work and family life. A random sampling from the Spring 2005 issue demonstrates the point:

Norman Rosenberg, class of '66, life "enlivened by teaching at universities in England, Norway, Hong Kong"
Karen Pogannis, class of '68, "continue to do research on the Emperor Penguin each year down in the Arctic.
John Trasvina, '76, "returning to government service as Western States Regional Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights."
Vincent Ling, '80, "Recently promoted to Director of Molecular Biology at …biotech Compound Therapeutics."
John McDonald, '83, "Still working Space Sciences Lab in Berkeley…and writing and painting."
Emily Murasi, also '83, "…now serving as Executive Director of the S. F. Dept. on the Status of Women."
Brian Yee, '91, "I"ve opened up my dental practice in Redwood City."

To the extent that honors and AP classes help students like these realize their ambitions or reach the goals they set for themselves, they are worth keeping in the curriculum And so long as the teachers of these courses remain free to develop their own approaches to the subject, produce materials and tests of their own devising, and refuse to yield to the temptation-or the pressure-to teach to the tests, they prove their worth. But above all, they are only as good as they serve the needs and the desires of the students who take the courses and the exams and value them for their intrinsic worth, not for the meager satisfaction of leaping a hurdle or, with a sigh of relief, "putting that all behind them."

At their very best, they provide the student an opportunity to explore a subject in depth, awaken interest and curiosity to learn more than they might otherwise without that stimulus, and, finally, to use that learning in useful and self-fulfilling ways. If such be the case, they fulfill their promise.

But such intense efforts do not come without a price. Recognizing the additional burdens placed upon the teachers in preparing to teach the subject in some depth and complexity, the College Board rather strongly recommends that classes be limited in size and that teachers be granted additional time to prepare instruction, read and grade papers, and develop preparatory exams of their own. Thus far, the school district has been able to acknowledge the need for these additional prep periods and has budgeted for them. But with the current funding in jeopardy, these additional periods can't be guaranteed. Were the district to withdraw its support of the AP and honors programs, Lowell would be hard put to maintain them. If the teaching and administrative burdens become too great, both honors and AP courses could be drastically curtailed or eliminated altogether.

To a very considerable extent, colleges and universities granting credit for a superior test result benefit from the program also. Able to exempt students from having to take certain required general education courses, they save on instructional time, teacher salaries, and course materials. Not only do students save on course fees, but they can complete their undergraduate schooling more rapidly and at less expense to all concerned by reason of their successes on AP tests than if they hadn't taken them.

Are there no negative sides to so large a program? There is always the danger the program will take over the whole school and divide it into a first- and second-class institution; a first- and second-class student body, a first-and second-class faculty. As it is, AP testing takes two weeks to complete. Many rooms must accommodate it, including the school's cafeteria. Teachers and students are displaced, routine classes are disrupted, and students taking a test miss instruction in their other courses. With utmost care and attention to planning and logistics by Jow and Dacanay, the school thus far has been able to accommodate so large a program, even as it grows from year to year. Without funding for these two positions, however, the school would be plunged into chaos during the test period-a factor that all must take into account if in future the program is to continue at its present rate of growth.

Another negative aspect of the program concerns the criteria select colleges and universities are using to accept or reject applicants. Some insist that students take honors and advanced placement courses and tests and excel in them even to be considered for admission. Granted, they must establish some criteria for taking in students, but they should not be able to dictate to high-performing schools like Lowell and others just what courses and what tests they will consider on a student's transcript. Lowell teachers are a fit judge of student performance and achievement.

While test results can be useful in helping Lowell to judge a student's abilities and staying power, they should not substitute for the school's overall judgment based over four years of experience with the learner. Just as subjective measures here have their limits, so do objective measures-to the degree that tests can be objective. In all fairness to the student, some balance must be struck between the two. Harvard cautions teachers writing recommendations for students in this wise: is the student a mere grade-grubbber, or does he have a genuine interest in, and enthusiasm for, learning? A very fair question, and one that the best have been able to answer to, and for, in the affirmative. If the AP and honors programs continue to advance that answer affirmatively, no one could doubt their enduring worth.