Besides administering standardized pre-college tests, America's nonprofit College Board designs college-level classes that high school students can take. But now they're also crafting courses "not just with higher education at the table, but industry partners such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the technology giant IBM," [1]reports Education Week .

"The organization hopes the effort will make high school content more meaningful to students by connecting it to in-demand job skills."

> It believes the approach may entice a new kind of AP student: those who may not be immediately college-bound.... The first two classes developed through this career-driven model — dubbed AP Career Kickstart — focus on cybersecurity and business principles/personal finance, two fast-growing areas in the workforce." Students who enroll in the courses and excel on a capstone assessment could earn college credit in high school, just as they have for years with traditional AP courses in subjects like chemistry and literature. However, the College Board also believes that students could use success in the courses as a selling point with potential employers... Both the business and cybersecurity courses could also help fulfill state high school graduation requirements for computer science education...

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> The cybersecurity course is being piloted in 200 schools this school year and is expected to expand to 800 schools next school year... [T]he College Board is planning to invest heavily in training K-12 teachers to lead the cybersecurity course.

IBM's director of technology, data and AI called the effort "a really good way for corporations and companies to help shape the curriculum and the future workforce" while "letting them know what we're looking for." In the article the associate superintendent for teaching at a Chicago-area high school district calls the College Board's move a clear signal that "career-focused learning is rigorous, it's valuable, and it deserves the same recognition as traditional academic pathways."

Also interesting is why the College Board says they're doing it:

> The effort may also help the College Board — founded more than a century ago — maintain AP's prominence as [2]artificial intelligence tools that can already ace nearly every existing AP test on an ever-greater share of job tasks once performed by humans. "High schools had a crisis of relevance far before AI," David Coleman, the CEO of the College Board, said in a wide-ranging interview with EdWeek last month. "How do we make high school relevant, engaging, and purposeful? Bluntly, it takes [the] next generation of coursework. We are reconsidering the kinds of courses we offer...."

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> "It's not a pivot because it's not to the exclusion of higher ed," Coleman said. "What we are doing is giving employers an equal voice."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [3]theodp for sharing the article.



[1] https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/the-college-board-adds-two-new-ap-courses-heres-what-makes-them-different/2025/03

[2] https://www.edweek.org/technology/no-ai-wont-destroy-education-but-we-should-be-skeptical/2023/08

[3] https://www.slashdot.org/~theodp