Increasing Students’ AP Participation

According to a report by The Education Trust, it turns out that more than half a million low-income students and students of color are “missing” from AP and IB participation — students who would benefit from these advanced opportunities if they participated at the same rate as other students. This paper examines AP participation patterns nationally and then by school to estimate how many students are missing out. We also look at data for the much smaller IB program. It turns out that, each year, more than half a million low-income students and students of color are “missing” from AP and IB participation — students who would benefit from these advanced opportunities if they participated at the same rate as other students. We also attempt to understand why inequities in participation exist, by asking whether the problem is mostly inadequate AP course offerings in high-poverty or high-minority schools, or because low-income students and students of color are not enrolling in existing programs. The researchers state that the bottom line is clear – we need to continue to expand advanced offerings like AP and IB to schools that don’t yet have them. There’s a lot we can do to bolster participation in existing programs. The study states that we could almost entirely eliminate the national access gap by doing, at scale, what some individual high schools already have done: close race and income access gaps within schools.

The Education Trust, & Equal Opportunity Schools (2013). Finding America’s missing AP and IB students. Washington, D.C.: The Education Trust. https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Missing_Students.pdf