Student ensures econ is no longer the 'dismal science'

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PITTSBURGH -- Entering his senior year at Pittsburgh Allderdice High School, Seth Weidman felt there was demand for an Advanced Placement economics class.So he decided to supply one.At least one night a week for nine months, Seth taught college-level economics to a group of his fellow Allderdice students, traveling from living room to living room with his dry-erase board in tow.Fueled by Doritos, pretzels and the occasional homemade tiramisu, Seth's students in the "Weidman School of Economics" numbered 18, with nine of them eventually taking at least one of the two AP economics tests offered.Thus far, the results have been spectacular. The students took 12 total tests, and of the eight scores that have come in this month, six are 5's -- the highest possible on a scale of 1 to 5 -- and two are 4's. Depending on what colleges the students attend, those scores likely will qualify them for course credits or advanced standing."It feels very satisfying," Seth said earlier this week. "It was fun."Though the College Board, which administers AP tests, doesn't track exactly how many students study for tests on their own without taking the high school course, spokeswoman Jennifer Topiel said that the number is fairly low. "It's not very common at all," she said.Seth, now 18, spent six to 12 hours per week teaching and preparing for the class.Most of the class members were upperclassmen, though a few were freshmen. One of those, 15-year-old Eva Petzinger, found out about the class after she met Seth at a school juggling club meeting."At first, it was crazy hard," she said. "I was sure I was going to fail the AP. Once we started reviewing, we just got to the point where answering free response questions was almost automatic."Eva ultimately scored a 5 on the macroeconomics test.Though Seth had done some one-on-one tutoring, he had never taught a whole group at once. And effective teaching, not surprisingly, involved a learning curve."When I began teaching, I wasn't very good," he said. "I was not prepared, extremely nervous and unsure of myself."Seth not only found his teaching groove, he also unearthed quality teaching materials. He convinced Allderdice guidance counselor Lynn Warner to order him copies of the latest actual AP economics tests released by the College Board.And an attempt to get a well-known college textbook, "Principles of Economics," proved unexpectedly successful.He e-mailed the textbook's author, Gregory Mankiw, who is also a Harvard professor and a former chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. He also contacted a company called Aplia, which provides online access to textbooks.With help from both parties, he got access to the textbook on Dec. 13. He remembers the date, he said, because he also found out that day that he'd been admitted to the University of Chicago."It was an amazing day," he said.Seth developed an interest in economics during his freshman year at Allderdice, when he saw a Web site recommendation for Friedrich Hayek's 1944 book "The Road to Serfdom."Whatever Seth thought he knew about economics was fundamentally changed after he read the book, known as a landmark libertarian text. "It made me see that economics isn't just about a bunch of guys sitting on CNBC," he said. "It's more about incentives. It gives you a cool perspective to understand the world."He proceeded to devour seminal works on economics. Along the way, he set his college sights on the University of Chicago.Browsing in Barnes & Noble one day, he pulled an AP economics prep book off the shelf and flipped through it. He quickly determined that he could easily learn what he didn't already know, and decided to study for the AP test on his own.At the end of his junior year, he took the AP microeconomics and macroeconomics tests, receiving the top score of 5 on both.When a few of his friends also seemed interested in studying for AP economics, he offered to teach them -- and thus the class was born.E-mail Anya Sostek at asostek(at)post-gazette.com(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)