Credit by Demonstrated Mastery, colloquially known as CDMs, are a fundamental institution for many students at East and in the CHCCS district. Students who choose to CDM take a two-part test to obtain credit for a course, if they score high enough, without taking the class.
“[CHCCS has] more applicants than anyone else in the entire state,” said CHCCS director of secondary humanities Christy Stanley. “In fact, I would say cumulatively, we have more applicants than the entire state. If you take all 114 other school districts, we have twice as many [applicants], even in comparison to Wake and Charlotte-Mecklenburg…. Every year, our numbers have increased in terms of students applying to CDM
Students utilize CDMs for a multitude of reasons—some may choose to CDM a math course to open up a space in their schedule in order to take a double-block class, while others might seek to graduate early. For many, the choice to CDM is simply to acquire more AP credits. No matter the reason, the process remains the same: The first part is a multiple choice test while the second part includes free response questions, though it varies for each test.
Junior Victoria Schmidt, who CDM’d Civics as a freshman so she could take APUSH her sophomore year, found the process confusing, though she said the test itself was easy.
“I am glad I did it, because I get to laugh at all of my friends who are dealing with APUSH now,” she said. “If you have a class that you know you don’t want to take junior year, and you have something else you’re interested in taking, [CDMs] can be good, not just doing it to get ahead.”
Teachers such as French teacher Valerie Huet also question the motives of some students, though Huet is also aware of the advantages present.
“Why would you drag them through a class where they’re going to be bored [and] not learning much when they’re capable of doing higher-level French?” Huet said. “But, sometimes it’s like, ‘Okay, you don’t care about the language, you just want to get as many APs as you can.’ That’s the problem with the culture of the school, it’s nothing to do with the student.”
Still, students who have chosen to CDM to acquire more AP credits are happy with their decision. Senior Henry Liu, who has CDM’d four courses throughout high school, said he’s happy he was able to take more AP sciences as a result; and this year, he doesn’t have to be on campus until fifth period.
“There were some downsides to it because I didn’t have any classes with other people in my grade; it was always like when I was a sophomore there were juniors in the class,” Liu added. “Maybe a couple years down the line, I’ll wish I had more classes with people in my grade, [but] right now, I’m happy with what I did.”
East graduate Allie McCoy attempted to CDM English IV her junior year. However, despite passing the first portion of the test, she was unsuccessful in passing the second portion.
“I think they tried to make [the second part] as hard as possible, I guess to discourage people from doing it,” McCoy said. “I’m sure if it was like, ‘All you have to do is take the NCFE (North Carolina Final Exam) for this class,’ everyone would CDM everything.”
McCoy was able to instead cross-enroll at Phoenix Academy to take the single credit she needed to graduate.
“All [the counselors] ever told me was, ‘You can try and CDM the class,’ but that is absolutely not the only way you can [graduate early], I realized,” McCoy said. “I didn’t feel like they were looking out for me at all.”
Administrators, students and teachers alike worry that there are too many students CDMing courses for all of the “wrong reasons,” like CDMing multiple courses to gain AP credits and boost their GPA instead of a taking a higher-level course to place out of preliminary levels of a subject
“[CDMs are] wonderful, but again, the question is, what’s the end goal?” said Stanley. “We’ve got uber-smart children in our district who are very capable, and we want to see them excel, and we’re thrilled to have this opportunity for them, but [they’re] missing out on those conversations and discussions, and those projects and independent research, and just those things that actually are not measured on an assessment. I would like to debunk the myth that the one with the most credits at the end wins.”
There will be a parent meeting Dec. 9 regarding CDMs. More information can be found here.
Image courtesy of Eloise Rich/The ECHO.
