Can Providing Universal Access to AP Courses Improve Equity?



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Source: “GATE students grind acorns” / Wikimedia commons / NPS Brad Sutton

The Advanced Placement program has served as an educational opportunity for advanced education for the last seven decades. As Chester Finn and Andrew Scanlan document in their book about the past, present, and future of AP—Learning in the Fast Lane—AP was originally a “niche benefit for privileged students” but is now a “springboard to college for high school students nationwide, including hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged youth.”

One barrier is access to AP courses, especially for underserved students. Only a few states have provided universal access to AP courses as well as a test fee waiver.

One of those states is Arkansas. In a recent study published in the Journal of Advanced Academics led by Andy Parra Martinez along with Rian Djita and Sarah McKenzie, we examined data from 2016-2021 on AP course enrollment and credit attainment for 200,000 students.

Arkansas mandated statewide AP access in 2003 and covered the cost of the exam for all students since 2005. We used multilevel modeling to look at the relationship between student/school factors that might influence AP enrollment and success. Females enrolled much more than males, Asian Americans much more than Whites, and gifted identified (GT) students much more than those not identified. The fraction of students from low-income backgrounds, GT identified, and student diversity were important predictors of AP enrollment.

Overall, the Arkansas universal access policy has led to increasing equitable enrollment of traditionally underserved students. However, residual disparities continue to persist for students from low-income backgrounds, English language learners, and special education students. On the other hand, given that AP was originally designed to challenge gifted students ready for advanced programming, “Prior achievement and GT status were the strongest predictors of enrollment in AP courses.”

Some possible future directions for this research are to investigate why, despite the Arkansas universal access policy being implemented roughly 20 years ago, it still remains a challenge for students from underserved backgrounds to take full advantage of this policy. Like other interventions in higher education, perhaps providing access may not be enough. Future studies, for example, might try to uncover ways schools from more underserved communities might help make everyone aware of the universal access policy, or perhaps even automatically enroll students into AP courses if they meet certain reasonable academic benchmarks and appear ready for additional educational challenge and rigor. As the AP program expands to serve both highly gifted students and students across a wide spectrum, perhaps more can be done to ensure AP serves each of these communities appropriately.


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