September 25, 2018

Contacts
William J. Mathis: (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net
Beth C. Rubin: (848) 932-0677, beth.rubin@gse.rutgers.edu
Great Lakes Center: (517) 203-2940, greatlakescenter@greatlakescenter.org

Review: Systems for Success: Thinking Beyond Access to AP

EAST LANSING, Mich. (September 25, 2018) — A recent report from the Education Trust uses a case study of two exemplary high schools to address the question of how schools might support low-income students and students of color in gaining access to and achieving success in Advanced Placement programs.

Professor Beth C. Rubin of Rutgers University reviewed Systems for Success: Thinking Beyond Access to AP, and praised the report’s descriptions of interventions providing access to and support for underrepresented students in AP. But the author also raised concerns about the report’s limited descriptions of its methodological and analytical approaches.

The report is part of Think Twice Review, a project of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), funded by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

Rubin’s key finding is that the report is useful but lacks specificity about its methodology and analysis.  The scant detail on participants and data collection methods, and lack of discussion on how the data were analyzed, weaken links between claims and evidence.

Systems for Success contends that a variety of interventions help promote student access and success in AP, including teacher support and development, analysis of class composition, careful scheduling, and provision of during- and after-school academic support for students. The report’s qualitative approach is well-suited to describing ways that schools can address the complex and deeply rooted problem of inequitable access to academic opportunity within secondary education.

Yet the report suffers, Professor Rubin explains, by not being grounded in the research literature on learning and inequality, and by an inattention to the experiences of students from the least-represented groups in advanced placement courses nationwide. In lacking these features, the report misses an opportunity to address key educational justice issues.

Overall, while it provides some inspiring examples, more detailed and rigorous description of methods and analysis would make a stronger case for the report’s highlighted interventions.

Find the Think Twice Review by Rubin on the web:
http://www.greatlakescenter.org

Think Twice, a project of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), provides the public, policymakers and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. The project is made possible by funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

Find Systems for Success: Thinking Beyond Access to AP, written by Ashley Griffin and Davis Dixon and published by The Education Trust, at:
https://edtrust.org/resource/systems-success-thinking-beyond-access-ap/

 You can also find the review by Beth C. Rubin at the NEPC website:
https://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-AP

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The mission of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research & Practice is to support and disseminate high quality research and reviews of research for the purpose of informing education policy and to develop research-based resources for use by those who advocate for education reform.

Visit the Great Lakes Center website at http://www.greatlakescenter.org/