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Once upon a time, but more importantly I taught an AP class for years.
Not to generalize the world to you, but I've found educators that aren't jaded after a few years to be unreliable sources with regards to education.
I have no idea what that means, or why it is relevant. I am talking about why the course is offered, which is not to help students skip classes. Why would anyone put in all that extra work for that? And, why would you possibly think that jaded teachers are reliable sources?
I'm pretty sure that is the sales pitch that actually works though. If you think there is a different reason, and that is education, I don't think you understand school.
Because their view on education largely mirrors mine. Which is that we are wasting lots of people's time and money.
Perhaps, but why does that matter? If I convince my 4-yr-old that it is fun to eat vegetables by shaping them like Winnie the Pooh, does that mean that the purpose of feeding him vegetables is to have him experience fun?
That is hardly the basis for deeming them a reliable source for an empirical claim
The average non-jaded educators being utopian in outlook and blind to the obvious falsity of the blank slate theory of humanity is pretty strong.
Comparing an AP class to vegetables is very much what I'm talking about. Its closer to one of those fancy shaped ice cream bars you could get from the truck back in the day. Perhaps charitably it might be cutting a napkin into an airplane shape to prank your nephew into eating it.
Your analogy to things that lack nutritional value seems to be a claim that AP classes lack educational value. That is a very odd claim, esp given that it is their value relative to ordinary courses which is relevant to whether they enhance student learning. Not to mention that it is unclear how a valueless course would give students enough knowledge and skills to permit them to pass the test and get college credit.
But, even if they do lack value, what does that have to do with why they are offered? If a doctor gives you an experimental medicine that you agree to take only because it has the side effect of getting you high, but it turns out that the drug is ineffective, would you infer that the doctor's goal was to get you high, not to cure you?
You learn for the test, then largely forget it. As is true for real college classes.
They are offered as part of a long accreditation process that is intended to weed out dumber people and less hard working people. See, e.g. Caplan's writings on this.
Dude, there is no HS teacher on the planet who teaches an AP class "as part of a long accreditation process that is intended to weed out dumber people and less hard working people." Nor are there HS administrators who offer the class for that reason.
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