This Research Brief summarizes the performance of Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) students participating in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. The IB program was offered at six M-DCPS high schools in 2022-2023. Over 3,200 assessments were completed by M-DCPS students in 30 subject areas in 2022-2023. The number of IB…

This memorandum provides information pertinent to the participation and performance of Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) examinations for 2023 graduates in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS). In 2023, 59.3% of MCPS graduates took one or more AP exams; 17.3 percentage points more than graduates in Maryland and 24.6…

This Research Brief summarizes the performance of Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) students participating in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. The IB program was offered at six M-DCPS high schools in 2021-2022. Over 3,000 assessments were completed by M-DCPS students in 30 subject areas in 2021-2022. The number of IB…

This memorandum provides information pertinent to the participation and performance of Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) examinations for 2022 graduates in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS). In 2022, 63.2% of MCPS graduates took one or more AP exams--21.9 percentage points more than public school graduates in…

This case study mapped patterns of disproportionality in Advanced Placement (AP) access, enrollment, and completion for systemically excluded students through secondary data analysis of the Civil Rights Data Collection (2015-6), and documents the degree of segregation within two diverse school districts. Although there was relatively robust…

This memorandum provides information pertinent to the participation and performance of Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) examinations for 2021 graduates in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS). In 2021, 66.6 percent of MCPS graduates took one or more AP exams, a rate that was 23.0 and 31.7 percentage points higher…

The performance of White students and Hispanic students from California, Texas, and Arizona on the advanced placement (AP) biology exam was compared using archival data from the College Board from 2016 through 2019. Pearson Chi-square tests yielded statistically significant differences in all 4 year comparisons of white and Hispanic students in…

Black and Latinx students are underrepresented in advanced placement (AP) and dual enrollment (DE), and implicit bias of educators has been discussed as one potential contributor. This study tests whether aggregate measures of implicit and explicit racial bias are related to AP and DE participation and racial/ethnic gaps in participation,…

Background/Context: There were over 500,000 open computing jobs across the country in 2018, but only 35% of U.S. high schools offer computer science classes, and only 8-10% of STEM graduates study computer science (Code.org, 2018). In 2021, only 5.1% of all Bachelor's degrees conferred were in Computer and Information Sciences (IPEDS, 2018). STEM…

Educators and researchers highlight the important role that math plays in providing opportunities for upward mobility in the United States (and globally). Many students from underrepresented communities, including Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and low-income students, often do not get the support they need to develop a positive math mindset, sense of…

The U.S. economy requires a highly educated workforce, yet too few black, Latino, and low-income students attend, persist, and graduate from college. The present study examines the college outcomes of participants in a model Advanced Placement® (AP) intervention to shed light on its effectiveness and determine whether improving AP participation…

Fierce local debates throughout the United States surround the equity of admitting students to public schools using academic criteria. Although research has evaluated the central assumption of these debates--that Selective Enrollment Public (SEP) schools enhance the welfare of students who attend them--none has addressed the district-level…

When Black and Latino students are given advanced opportunities, they thrive alongside their peers. However, only a fraction of eligible students is enrolled in Advanced Placement (AP) Biology, Chemistry, and Physics courses, which means that most Black and Latino students are being denied vital learning opportunities that can set them up for…

This study examined the perceived educational barriers and academic and college-going self-efficacy beliefs of a diverse population of high school students. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between learning program and student self-efficacy (both academic and college-going), while also exploring the presence…

This memorandum describes the Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) exams participation and performance of 2013 to 2015 public school graduates in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) and the state of Maryland. The results are disaggregated by demographics and high schools. Students in the MCPS Class of 2015 continued to…