Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

AP and DE are the two most popular and fast growing programs that allow students to enroll in college-level coursework and earn college credits while in high school. Proponents have listed several advantages associated with these college acceleration strategies, including increasing students’ competitive edge in the college application process, reducing the costs and time it takes to receive a postsecondary degree, better preparing students for college-level coursework and therefore easing students’ transition from high school to college. Yet, a number of reports identify noticeable disparities in students’ actual enrollment in these programs across different subpopulations. In this paper, we provide a detailed descriptive analysis of the patterns and predictors of white-black and white-hispanic enrollment gaps in AP and DE programs across school districts that have significant populations of black or hispanic students. We first describe the geographic patterns of racial gaps in AP and DE participation among school districts in the US. We then identify possible sources for such racial gaps by estimating the correlation between enrollment gaps and district-level characteristics (e.g., disparities in prior academic performance, student teacher ratios, instructional expenditures), local-level characteristics (e.g., neighborhood conditions), and state-level characteristics (e.g., state-mandated AP/DE teacher professional development). To estimate sources of variation, we merged three main sources of data together, including the (1) CRDC (Civil Rights Data Collection), a biennial survey of all public schools and school districts; (2) ACS (American Community Survey), an annual, nationwide survey that includes demographic, social, economic, and housing characteristics for school-age children; and (3) CCD (Common Core Data), an annual survey of all public elementary and secondary schools in the U.S., which include basic descriptive information on schools and school districts, including enrollment counts. We use the merged dataset to construct district-level measures, metropolitan area measures, and state-policy measures that are used as explanatory variables for the variations in racial gaps in AP and DE enrollment across districts. Results from this study will provide valuable insights on the extent and causes of racial enrollment gaps in AP and DE programs in the U.S.