Dive Brief:
- The National Math and Science Initiative's College Readiness Program is touting massive success in preparing students for Advanced Placement exams, with participating schools and students seeing an average increase of 67%, according to eSchool News.
- The improvements at these schools were more than 10x the average annual increase, with participating African-American and Hispanic students seeing an average increase in qualifying scores of 6x the national average, while female students saw 10x more than the average.
- The program takes three years, offering training for teachers and study sessions for students, in addition to supplying needed resources. The program expanded into nearly 200 new schools during this past year.
Dive Insight:
The program’s success illustrates the challenges facing many low-income students and students of color. Many such students attend high schools that are chronically underfunded, and according to reporting from The Atlantic, those schools may not offer AP classes or a college-prep-oriented curriculum. The article demonstrated that about one-quarter of high schools with higher percentages of black and Hispanic students do not offer a second year in algebra, despite the fact that many AP classes (and college courses) require two years of the subject. One of the primary challenges seems to be the lack of access.
However, the primary problem may not lie with schools lacking any AP classes, according to this report from The Education Trust. Its authors said only one in ten U.S. students attended a school with no AP courses, though students of color were far more likely than white students to attend schools offering an insufficient number of AP courses. The report recommended that many of these issues can be solved on the school and district level by auditing entry requirements to AP classes and working with vulnerable students to offer clearer information about the doors opened by AP courses and college preparation.