AP Economics Macro class will debut in the spring of 2009 as a new senior Social Studies elective at Paly.

According to Eric Bloom, Instructional Supervisor of the Social Studies Department at Paly, the class is designated to be a second semester class so that students have time to take the Economics 11 class, a pre-requisite for AP Economics Macro. The AP course in the spring will prepare students to take the AP Macro test, Bloom said.

“The regular economics is an introductory class and covers lots of the AP content. Thus [economics] prepares any student to take on the next level of study, [which is] AP Economics,” Bloom said.

According the College Board, which administers the Advanced Placement program, the Micro- portion of AP Economics covers markets in greater depth, whereas the Macro- part of AP Economics goes more in depth into topics such as inflation, unemployment, and money.

“With our regular Economics [class], we [the teachers] will provide the basics,” Bloom said. “Then, of the two Macro- and Micro-, I believe that the macro is the area that we cover least in depth. We talk about monetary policy, but we don’t talk about the mechanics of monetary policy. What [students] would be doing is looking at a college perspective rather than sort of an introductory perspective.”

Bloom says that the idea of offering AP Economics to students has been debated by Paly’s Social Studies department for years, but there are a few concerns about senior elective class distribution.

“One of our [the Social Studies department’s] concerns was [that] by offering an AP course,” Bloom said, “we would eliminate one or two of our other social science electives like Foreign Policy, Sociology, or Ethnic Studies, which serve a different portion of the school population than AP economics.”

New PAUSD Superintendent Kevin Skelly proposed the introduction of AP Economics into Paly’s course selection.

“I think between 10 and 20% of the kids who leave our schools are going to end up majoring in economics in college,” Skelly said. “A school of the quality of Paly should offer kids a full year of economic study.”

Gunn High School has offered students a yearlong AP Economics class – covering both Micro- and Macroeconomics – for 6 years, according to John Hebert, Instructional Supervisor of the Social Studies Department at Gunn.

“We have six sections [of AP Economics] and over 150 students enrolled – all seniors,” Hebert said.

The AP Economics Macro class will be weighted equally as other AP classes, and will count for 5 credits, Bloom said.

Though the final decision for an instructor of the course will be decided in March, Bloom says he thinks the Paly Social Studies Department has a sufficient number of potential teachers to take the job.

As for student turnout, Bloom estimates that between 25 to 50 students will sign up for the class.

“There’s always a demand for more AP courses at Paly,” Bloom said.