It's AP Reading Time!!!

Today began the annual AP Reading for Statistics! Last week, when I was returning from a school safety meeting in Little Rock, someone said to me, "I thought y'all were off for the summer." I just laughed a little and replied, "Yeah. That's what most people think." Au contraire though. There are a lot of teachers hard at work, even as I write this post.

As teachers, we're required to spend several days in the summer attending professional development opportunities. Too often, the only benefit we see from PD sessions is the few hours of credit we get from attending. I'd say not much of the PD we're required to do every year actually makes us better teachers, or helps us improve student outcomes. 

But my AP-related work, including the annual AP reading, is different. Before this week is over, I'll have scored over 1000 responses to the same question. Today I made it through 80-something. Already I'm seeing common mistakes and misconceptions, getting ideas for ways to change the way I teach to help my students score better on next year's exam.  Hundreds of other AP Stat teachers are doing the same, as are AP teachers for all the other subjects.

Our welcome message this morning from the chief reader said there are some 210,000 AP Statistics exams to score this week. I have no idea how many readers there are, but I'm sure it's a bunch. There may be a teacher or two somewhere who takes the entire summer off, but if there is, I haven't met them yet.

So thanks to all the teachers out there putting in the work so kids can learn and succeed next year!

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