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A Closer Look at AP Students Figure 3

Strategies for Progress

We hope schools, districts, states, and colleges and universities will consider the following strategies for increasing rigor, promoting equity, and supporting science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education in high school classrooms.

The College Board would like to thank the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) for its help developing these strategies.

Increasing Rigor

  • Use AP Instructional Planning Reports to target areas for increased attention and focus in the curriculum.
  • Adopt rigorous academic standards that provide a vertically aligned progression of content and skills anchored in AP.
  • Develop plans to recruit, retain, train, and mentor new and less experienced AP teachers.
  • Use AP Potential™ to identify students at your school who are likely to succeed in AP courses. Where there are sufficient numbers of potential students for particular subjects, use these data to select new AP courses to offer.

Promoting Equity

  • Offer emotional and academic support to students through targeted peer mentoring, counseling, tutoring, and summer transition programs.
  • Use AP Potential to identify minority and low-income students at your school who are likely to succeed in AP.
  • Use AP Potential results to invite students and parents from particular underserved backgrounds to targeted sessions of your school's AP night that highlight your school's course offerings. Have older students from similar backgrounds who have had successful AP experiences speak at these sessions.

Supporting STEM

  • Establish and support afterschool activities and clubs related to STEM (e.g., robotics club, math competitions).
  • Ensure that recruitment efforts for these programs reach female students and other students traditionally underrepresented in math and science.
  • Get students involved and energized. Encourage teachers to continually demonstrate real-world applications of STEM concepts, and give students hands-on learning experiences earlier and more often.
  • Use AP Potential to identify students at your school who are likely to succeed in AP math and science. Where there are sufficient numbers of potential students for particular subjects, use these data to select new math and science course offerings.

Increasing Rigor

  • Implement summer programs (e.g., summer "boot" or "boost" camps) to help students prepare for specific AP courses.
  • Create networks where teachers and administrators in your district can collaborate to improve instruction and student success.
  • Establish district-level AP Vertical Teams® * that meet at least four times per academic year.
  • Use AP Potential to identify students in your district who are likely to succeed in AP courses. Where there are sufficient numbers of potential students for particular subjects, use these data to select new AP courses to offer.

    *An AP Vertical Team is a group of middle and high school educators (usually teachers of grades 6 through 12) in a particular subject area who work cooperatively to develop and implement vertically aligned curricula to facilitate student preparedness for AP courses in that subject area and for college.

Promoting Equity

  • Require secondary schools to review current AP course enrollment practices to ensure that all students have access to academic pathways that will prepare them for AP.
  • Leverage AP Potential to help eliminate gatekeeping mechanisms such as entrance exams.
  • Review districtwide student data to ensure proportionate AP enrollment, number of exams taken, course grades, and AP Exam scores.
  • Use AP Potential to identify minority and low-income students in your district who are likely to succeed in AP.

Supporting STEM

  • Implement grade-weighting policies for pre-AP and AP STEM classes, starting as early as the sixth grade.
  • Use AP Potential to identify students in your district who are likely to succeed in AP math and science. Where there are sufficient numbers of potential students for particular subjects, use these data to select new math and science course offerings.
  • Provide at least four opportunities per year for pre-AP and AP STEM teachers to vertically align their courses with the skills necessary for success in AP STEM subjects.
  • Establish a program for pre-AP science classes that incorporates and develops the laboratory-based skills necessary for success in AP science.

Increasing Rigor

  • Set a clear, measurable statewide goal for AP participation and success.
  • Establish AP participation and performance indicators on state report cards.
  • Require high schools or districts in your state to offer a minimum number of AP courses, either through traditional or online delivery models. Use the AP Course Ledger to measure progress toward that mandate.
  • Vertically align pre-AP and AP courses in your state with common core standards or your individual state's standards.

Promoting Equity

  • Provide targeted assistance and resources to schools serving traditionally underserved populations: for example, funding for materials, supplies, outreach efforts, and tutoring programs.
  • Build teacher capacity in schools serving traditionally underserved populations by requiring AP teachers to complete content-specific professional development during their first year and to update their training regularly. Make funding available for traveling to and attending professional development events.
  • Vertically align pre-AP and AP courses in your state with common core standards or your individual state's standards. Alignment with core standards can support more equitable access to successful academic experiences.

Supporting STEM

  • Provide funding incentives to subsidize fees for AP STEM exams.
  • Require students to take math and science courses during their senior year of high school.
  • Reward schools that increase curriculum opportunities to include at least three AP STEM courses.
  • Require districts to provide access to an Algebra I course in the eighth grade. Ensure that more students are prepared for and enrolled in this course.
  • Establish funding for math and science equipment: for instance, graphing calculators, laboratory equipment, and subscriptions to electronic homework systems.

Increasing Rigor

  • Encourage and reward faculty involvement in AP course development, exam scoring, and course syllabus review.
  • Use recent studies — for instance, Rick Morgan and John Klaric's 2007 study (.pdf/288.9KB) — to develop evidence-based AP credit policies. Requires Adobe Reader (latest version recommended).
  • Conduct validity studies at your institution to measure AP students' college performance, persistence, and time to degree.
  • Host weekend or evening lecture series to enhance AP teacher professional development and address particular topics or questions related to achievement gaps on AP Exams.

Promoting Equity

  • Develop and publicize equitable and evidence-based credit and placement policies at your institution. Examine your policies to ensure that qualifying AP scores are recognized for credit that satisfies course-equivalent degree requirements, as opposed to elective credit.
  • Review the numbers of low-income and underserved students reporting AP scores of 3 or higher to your institution, and examine possible policy limitations that hinder articulation of credit.
  • Recognize and collaborate with AP Districts of the Year near your institution. Expand your recruiting efforts to target these districts, and support their continued progress through collaborative activities such as AP teacher training, college fairs, and parent outreach.

Supporting STEM

  • Recruit successful AP students for your institution's STEM departments.
  • Recognize successful AP STEM exam performance by awarding course-equivalent credit, scholarships, and STEM-related incentives.
  • Encourage STEM faculty to get involved with local AP teachers and students. Conduct a student-centered study session on a weekend or evening prior to the AP Exam administration.
  • Organize tours for local AP students to visit your institution's lab facilities.
  • Provide incentives for teacher education programs to increase the number of qualified teachers prepared to teach AP STEM subjects.
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