In 2021, Patrick Henry High School began offering Mesa English 101 for the senior English requirement.

This course is an alternative to the common core Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum class and AP English Language and Composition class, intending to appeal to students not headed to a four-year university but who, after finding success in a community college course, could end up pursuing higher education—a group of students whom the English department was told constituted 5-10% of seniors.

However, this dual enrollment course appeals to a much wider subset of the student population, its numbers proliferating quickly since 2021. In the 2023-2024 school year roughly 40% of seniors were dual enrolled for English; this year, that percentage is even higher. Patrick Henry also offers dual enrollment political science as an alternative to common core and AP-level government and economics.

After news broke earlier this school year about a slew of new dual enrollment courses—including an alternative to regular, honors, and AP US history—the conversation surrounding the drawbacks of these courses became more prevalent than ever. It is important to note that these courses receive double-weighting while AP courses—which are also college level—are only single-weighted, incentivizing students to choose Mesa to boost their GPA.

Despite its well-intentioned genesis, Mesa English 101 has had the prime effect of teaching students to take the easy way out. This course appeals primarily to four-year college bound students taking it for all the wrong reasons: when we ask our high-GPA’d peers why they choose Mesa, we are given the same tired responses: it’s asynchronous, it’s online, it’s an easy A.

Henry’s AP Lang teacher taught both the valedictorian and salutatorian for 12 consecutive years before Mesa 101 came along, illustrating that Henry’s most capable students are no longer opting for the challenge. Given that the average English 101 student is already college-bound, the principal benefit of this course offering is neutralized.

Rather than making strides toward socioeconomic equity, Henry’s dual enrollment program merely provides competitive students another chance to manipulate already respectable GPAs. When we spoke to one Mesa senior—ranked in the top 10 of a class of 600—she cited the “flexibility” of English 101 as the reason she signed up. When asked to compare her experience to her friends in AP Lang, she laughed and with a stroke of litotes remarked, “I’m definitely having an easier time,” reflecting on the “busywork” she’s given in English class and admitting that she’s “missing out” on some of what AP Lang offers.

Clearly, Mesa’s reputation at Henry is facility rather than equity, appealing mainly to the busy student-athlete. Thus, what do we have to lose by getting rid of the program?

In both AP Lang and ERWC, students engage in intellectually challenging Socratic graded discussions; in Mesa 101, the extent of ideological exchange is commenting on one another’s videos typically made alone in one’s bedroom. Perhaps the danger of this lack of interaction is best exemplified by dual enrollment political science.

While high school civics is often stereotyped as mundane, in our increasingly tense political environment the importance of engaging with civics cannot be understated. Spending an hour with one’s peers discussing the nature of American government opens minds and creates genuine interest, a situation which cannot be replicated by an asynchronouscourse. Also, civics’ dense reputation is easily remedied by the AP Government culture at Henry.

Our AP Gov teacher opens class every day by asking if we have any questions about the world; the discourse in his class is consistently engaging, open, and respectful. Without such easy access to answers for our generation’s many (understandable) questions, it follows that civics doesn’t stick with students. Is an undereducated electorate really what we want to strive for right now? And we’re not even going to mention the extensive use of AI we’ve heard our peers in dual enrollment political science admit to.

More than simply students losing out

Our students aren’t the only ones losing out.

With the new addition of a dual enrollment course that can replace US history, one APUSH and common core history teacher is being forced to replace all of her history-related classroom decorations with English ones. Less students on campus requires less teachers on campus; it’s as simple as that. Dual enrollment courses are taught by adjunct professors who only get courses if courses fill. These teachers are thus forced to make their classes appealing (easy), while AP teachers are incentivized by rigorous end-of-course exams to keep their classes challenging.

Third-party exam scorers aren’t the only thing keeping AP teachers in line: unlike Mesa professors, Henry teachers’ syllabi and course contents are subject to review by site administrators. There are more external forces keeping on-campus courses rigorous while dual enrollment classes are under active pressure to be less than challenging.

Dual enrollment courses aren’t all bad; these writers quickly support expanded elective course opportunities that create well-rounded students. But when dual enrollment courses replace core classes—English, history, government—the loss of valuable student-student and student-teacher interaction is counterproductive for a generation who’s already lost too much to online learning.

If our school administrators plan to continue implementing dual enrollment classes, it’s time to add some modifications. Bringing them back on campus mitigates competition with AP teachers because students won’t be incentivized by a home period to enroll.

Additionally, if our administrators wanted to restore the classes’ original purpose—offering students not bound for college experience in a community college class—they would implement a maximum GPA requirement to take the class, ensuring that high-achieving students don’t become challenge averse. In relation to college admissions, the small GPA boost Mesa 101 provides is not worth the larger lesson it teaches: take the easy way out, even if that means sacrificing a higher quality education. Relative to AP Lang, English 101 students spend significantly less time on coursework but earn significantly more A’s (in the second half of the 2022-23 school year, 62.2% of dual enrolled students “earned” an A compared to 24.5% of Lang students). An unearned A does not prove college readiness, and opting for an easy one proves just the opposite.

In short, dual enrollment classes—originally intended to make a small section of students more college ready—are proving to make a large section of students less college ready.

Editor’s note: Matthew Buckhout and Emma Clifford are seniors at Patrick Henry High School.

(Courtesy photos)