I'm not a fan to put it mildly.

CEUs are just as bad. My friend is a medical assistant and has to have so many hours of them every year to keep his certification. He says 99 percent of them have little if anything to do with his daily work duties.

is that they actually are a valid test in the subject matter.

The grade you get in the exam corresponds pretty closely to what you actually learned.

In the rest of the world they have tests like this, ones that show what the kids learn in specific subject areas. Apart from the APs or the SAT subject exams, we don't have those things very much. They really are a good thing.

It's often one less course they have to pay $120 and upward per credit hour to take.

I've also read that kids who take AP classes but don't do very well on the exam, still go on to do better at college than those who never take AP classes.

Understandably, not all kids will be ready for AP classes and exams, even many who will go on to do just fine at college, but for those who can, they are a good thing. Every so often I'll meet a high school teacher who tells me that her high school tries to get them to water down the AP content, clearly not understanding the entire point of those courses.