To evaluate how Advanced Placement (AP) courses affect college-going, we randomly assigned the offer of enrollment into an AP science course to over 1,800 students in twenty-three schools that had not previously offered the course. We find no AP course effects on students' college entrance exam scores (SAT/ACT). As expected, AP course-takers are…

Students must have a working understanding of the language of instruction to be successful in school. In the United States, English is the predominant language of instruction, and students who come from homes where a language other than English is spoken face the additional challenge of learning both subject matter content and the dominant…

Across the United States, African American males face barriers to securing a quality education. Barriers such as educational gatekeeping, and low identification, have caused African American males' enrollment in advanced placement courses to be at a rate lower than all other ethnicity and gender populations. A qualitative approach to research was…

Madison Park Technical Vocational High School in Boston is attempting a turnaround and has been for decades. In 2016, after having been designated a Level 4 school by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), a stamp that branded it "underperforming," school officials created a plan they began…

Idaho's dual credit programs, with a unique state funding model under Advanced Opportunities, have seen substantial growth in student usage in recent years. WICHE analyzed six key topics related to the state's dual credit model: (1) Fiscal impact of using Advanced Opportunities funds for dual credit students specifically; (2) Number of credits…

This study examined participation in accelerated college credit programs dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, and Advanced Placement courses in Rhode Island high schools to understand their effects on educational attainment in the 2013/14 grade 9 cohort. The state, which has funded and promoted these opportunities for students to earn college…

This Study Snapshot highlights key findings where the Rhode Island Department of Education, the Rhode Island Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner, and state legislators sought evidence of the effects of state-funded programs for students to earn college credit during high school. Using data on the 2013/14 statewide grade 9 cohort, this…

The "The Effects of Accelerated College Credit Programs on Educational Attainment in Rhode Island" study examined participation in accelerated college credit programs dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, and Advanced Placement courses in Rhode Island high schools to understand their effects on educational attainment in the 2013/14…

A key issue for admissions teams is to distinguish which students of those who apply are truly able and sufficiently committed to complete a degree. One signal of a student's ability to achieve college-level academic requirements is participation in high school acceleration programs such as Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or…

Using a data set exclusively prepared for and licensed to them by the College Board, the authors examined the growth of the Advanced Placement program in foreign languages and overall trends in regard to the number of candidates who sat for the foreign language exams, their gender, their scores, and their ethnicity over the 36-year period covering…

Acceleration programs are academically challenging courses in which high school students can simultaneously earn credit toward a high school diploma and a postsecondary degree (dual credit). These programs include Advanced Placement courses, concurrent-enrollment courses, Postsecondary Enrollment Options courses (a dual-enrollment program in…

Our 31st annual report analyzing data from southeast Wisconsin's public school districts finds that while 68 of the 92 school districts are exceeding or significantly exceeding expectations on our new state report cards, there are large achievement gaps across the region on state assessments for low-income students and students of color. Key…

Our 32nd annual report analyzing data from southeast Wisconsin's public school districts finds progress on some college readiness indicators and largely positive showings on district report cards. Those results are offset, however, by discouraging results on standardized tests and continued substantial achievement gaps between students of…