Kyra: This column is our third in a series of things we’d like to see done differently in schools. This week, we’re discussing Advanced Placement (AP) classes. Having taken 6.5 AP classes (I dropped AP Physics this semester), I suppose Wes would say I “drank the Kool-Aid” and bought into the College Board’s diabolical schemes. Looking back, I have to agree.

I enjoy listening to the AP lectures, writing the essays and strategizing to beat the test. AP classes remind me of the ACT, in that preparing for the exam is a greater priority than actually learning the presented material. I think of AP and the ACT as games — kind of like “The Price is Right.” If I score high enough I might win money.

A good friend of mine, who was recently accepted into Harvard so he obviously knows how to play these games, takes a dimmer view. He told me, “If we condition people to believe that one is rewarded for taking in and reciting the facts they are presented without objection, we subtly encourage a mentality that doesn’t criticize information.”

Dr. Wes Crenshaw and Kyra Haas

Of course, I’ve had teachers who find ways to use AP curriculum to both prepare students for the exam and teach them to think critically. However, there’s no standard, so many teachers lean too far one way or the other. And, the nationwide exam in mid-May becomes an obstacle as the time constraint rarely allows for teachers to expand on the memorization-heavy AP outline. When they do, parents complain if scores are lower than expected.

Denise Pope, of the Stanford Graduate School of Education, has a different objection. She notes in a 2013 interview that separating AP and non-AP students creates a school within a school, hindering all students involved, as they are limited to primarily interacting with likeminded individuals. More experienced teachers are placed in AP classrooms, increasing the gap between the level of regular and Advanced Placement coursework. Having taken classes in both of those “schools within a school,” I agree. Adding AP material to regular classroom instruction would benefit all students by making the classes more rigorous all around.

Wes: I wouldn’t call it a “diabolical scheme,” but I’m 100 percent with Kyra’s friend. American education has moved dangerously toward teaching to the test, whether it is state or federal assessment, the ACT and SAT, or the college boards. Parents and students need to sit down, study the process, and think it through very carefully before following the lemmings over the edge of a cliff.

First, let’s remember that all players are primarily motivated by revenue, including school districts and colleges. Everyone has a business model and everyone is fighting to fund that model. Sometimes this is subtle. “No Child Left Behind” and its descendants attempt to tie educational outcomes (read: test scores) to funding. Colleges aren’t just institutions of learning. They’re businesses with massive budgets, marketing departments, and challenging revenue streams.

Other times it’s overt. While both ACT and The College Board are non-profit corporations, they’re also multi-million-dollar business entities, relying on grants and user fees to keep them afloat. The same is true of the high-dollar Duke TIP program. Each of these business models market to parental anxiety about getting kids into college.

This makes becoming a good consumer of education a matter of multi-dimensional spreadsheets, financial forecasting and complex vocational guidance that exceeds most parents’ knowledge and training. The best thing any family can do is to add a healthy dose of skepticism to the anxiety and passion of college choice.

A great place to start is with AP classes. While they’re quite helpful in offering academic rigor to the high school years, they’re no substitute for college credit. Many students who believed otherwise found out too late in their freshman year that they’d been “advance placed” into classes they simply couldn’t handle. As an alternative, I suggest sending teens to community college in their junior or senior year or taking advantage of college classes taught in the high schools to get real college credit for some of the prerequisites that aren’t cost-efficient in a four-year college setting.

Of course some teens have learned to play the game, as Kyra aptly puts it. But over the years, I’ve seen far more get played by it. Buy educational opportunity as you would a new car or home, and you’ll get the best deal.

Wes Crenshaw, Ph.D., ABPP, is author of “I Always Want to Be Where I’m Not: Successful Living with ADD & ADHD.” Learn about his writing and practice at dr-wes.com. Kyra Haas is a Free State High School senior who blogs at justfreakinghaasome.wordpress.com. Send your confidential 200-word question to ask@dr-wes.com. Double Take opinions and advice are not a substitute for psychological services.