In the upcoming 26–27 school year, UWM Economics 100, a one semester dual credit course through the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee will no longer be offered at Shorewood. Instead, AP Macroeconomics and AP Microeconomics, both one semester courses, will replace the class. Evan Schmidt, social studies department head and current teacher of UWM Economics 100, will teach both AP courses next year.
AP Micro and Macro, both introduced by College Board in 1989, are college level courses that focus on a variety of economic principles as well as modeling and analyzing economic situations. Towards the end of the year, students will have the opportunity to take a culminating exam that can earn them college credit.
“AP Microeconomics studies individual decision making, so key themes would include supply and demand, theory of the firm, [and] market failure,” Schmidt said. “AP Macroeconomics will be in the spring [and it] studies the economy as a whole. We will discuss national income, macroeconomic challenges like unemployment and inflation, [and] ways the government can impact the economy. It’s the bigger picture. Both tests will occur in May, so I will review AP Micro topics before the test.”
If interested, students have the decision to take both courses, or only choose one of the two. However, Schmidt advises that students take both classes to gain a better understanding of economics as a whole.
“I would recommend that students take both because of how interconnected the two courses are,” Schmidt said. “I think it makes sense to learn both about individual decision making and sort of connect that with how this applies to the whole economy.”
This change in curriculum comes in response to restructuring within the Social Studies Department regarding required courses and available credits.
“[For] sophomores and younger, financial literacy is a graduation requirement but it doesn’t count for social studies credit,” Schmidt said. “As a result, we wanted to provide one more choice for students in the social studies department. Having two AP Econ courses instead of one advanced economics course allowed us to provide the same amount of choice that exists currently.”
As well as providing more opportunities for students, the new curriculum will allow Schmidt to expand further on the subject matter, resulting in students gaining a more comprehensive understanding of economic topics.
“I have twice as much time in the new AP courses, so I will be able to deliver much more content,” Schmidt said. “In Econ 100 I covered both Micro and Macro in one semester, but now I will have a whole semester for Micro and a whole semester for Macro. We will be able to go deeper, which is something that I’m really looking forward to.”
Mike Joynt, District Director of Teaching and Learning, compared the costs of enrollment for dual-credit courses versus AP classes when weighing in on the new curriculum.
“UWM does offer a discounted rate [for highschoolers], so even with the dual enrollment course it’s a significant discount to be enrolled in the course,” Joynt said. “[However], with an AP course you’re only paying for the test so it’s a little bit more reasonable in terms of cost for students.”
The new course also allows teachers to take more creative liberties in regards to planning the class.
“We’re hoping that it gives Mr. Schmidt just a little bit more freedom around course design,” Joynt said. “When you offer dual enrollment courses you need to be planning with the professor at UWM; when you’re doing an AP course, the goal is mainly to have kids pass the AP exam, and how you design that course is largely up to the teacher.”
With this change, how student interest in the new courses will compare to UWM Econ 100 is still up in the air.
“I’m hopeful that there will be strong interest, just because of the opportunities that AP provides students,” Schmidt said. “[With] the nature of the content, I think understanding economics is equally helpful in understanding the world around us.”
UWM-affiliated courses also require less enrollment than wholly SHS classes.
“Sometimes we get into things like film study, where we can’t offer that type of course just because we don’t have the student population to get that number to be able to run,” Joynt said. “That’s where kids will oftentimes take those more specialty types of courses through UWM.”
Since AP Micro and Macro are courses that have never been offered at Shorewood in the past, Schmidt has never taught them in his career. Despite this, he is familiar with the content, having taught similar high-level economics courses in his previous teaching positions.
“I taught IB Economics, International Baccalaureate, for three years at a boarding school in Switzerland,” Schmidt said. “I had those students for two years, so I actually taught them more economics than I will be able to teach in AP Micro and Macro. I will be spending time from now until when we get started sort of refreshing my memory on concepts, but I feel fully confident in being able to teach these two courses.”
UWM Econ 110 will continue to be offered, with no plans to replace or remove the course.
“There will be no change to the dual credit option that exists for Financial Literacy, which is UWM Econ 110 the Economics of Personal Finance, a one credit course,” Schmidt said. “We actually have more than half of students in the class taking Econ 110, which I am really enthusiastic about.”
Econ 100 is not the only social studies course to be seeing a change next year, with a new addition coming to Civics, taught by Jesse Perez, currently a Civics and American Society teacher.
“We are adding Political Science 104 as a dual credit option for Civics, it’s going to be a three credit course, so that will be a mix of students taking the course just as Civics and then students who are taking it as Poly Sci 104,” said Schmidt.
While these dual credit options allow students to dive deeper into topics of interest, they also allow teachers to utilize their own passions and expertise to share knowledge of unique subjects that students would otherwise not be exposed to.
“I think that teachers are, you know, starting to figure out where our interests lie, and then we’re able to dive a little bit deeper on those things,” Perez said. “Specifically in the Social Studies department; [we] have Mr. Schmidt, who’s our expert on economics, [we] have Mr. Schulteis who is our behavioral sciences [and] social sciences expert given his psychology background and his sociology specialization, and then my goal is to become the government expert, as well as American history.”