AP Audits

Two things I don't get about Sunday's front page WaPo story about the College Board's initiative to audit the syllabi of courses schools are calling AP, in order to weed out classes that are AP in name only. First, I don't really understand why this is front page news, particularly since its not actually, um, new: Schools were able to begin submitting syllabi in January of this year. Second, I don't understand why the College Board needs to audit the syllabi. I don't doubt that some schools slap an AP label on courses that aren't really that rigorous and don't prepare kids for AP tests. But AP is, you know, a test. The College Board already knows how many students from each school are taking the tests, and how they are doing on them. Shouldn't that information be enough for them to identify schools where very few of the kids taking AP classes take the tests or where those who do are bombing? Isn't the point of test-based accountability that you can use student performance information to make judgements about whether or not schools are doing what they should be doing without getting into labor intensive and potentially micromanaging things like evaluating everyone's curriculum?