Many schools and districts administer ACT® Aspire® to measure progress towards college and career readiness. A recent study suggests that ACT Aspire scores can also be used to help identify students who are academically prepared and may benefit from some of the more rigorous courses offered in high schools across the nation, including Advanced…

The Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) is a biennial survey required by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights since 1968. This survey collects data on key education and civil rights issues in our nation's public schools. Using CRDC data, this fact sheet explores and presents the following data for English learner (EL)…

This report presents Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) examination participation and performance results in Texas public schools for the 2022-23 school year. Data are provided by student characteristics, including race/ethnicity; gender; and economic, at-risk, dyslexia, Emergent bilingual student/English learner, foster…

Motivation is repeatedly found to be a determining factor for achievement in language acquisition at school. Decades of Self-determination theory (SDT) research has shown that students exhibit higher levels of engagement and positive learning behaviours when their basic psychological needs of competence, autonomy and relatedness are satisfied,…

This report presents Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) examination participation and performance results in Texas public schools for the 2021-22 school year. Data are provided by student characteristics, including race/ethnicity; gender; and economic, at-risk, dyslexia, Emergent bilingual student/English learner, foster…

The Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG) exam consists of two sections: sixty multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and three free-response questions (FRQs); both sections have equal percentages in the exam weighting (College Board 2020). Because the main motivation of the students taking this course is to earn college credit by scoring a three or…

This report presents information about the Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) programs, including information about courses, examinations, and examination fees. The report also discusses the Texas AP Incentive Program, Texas policy related to uses of AP and IB examination results, and data sources and methodological…

While choices of musical repertory are key to challenging the historical ethnocentrism of school music curricula, ethnocentrism manifests as powerfully in the way a curriculum defines and structures musical knowledge. This article examines the knowledge divisions used to structure one of the most popular and reputable high school music curricula…

This paper introduces four local field studies designed and conducted by two Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG) teachers. All of these activities were designed for ninth-graders taking APHG courses. Both teachers implement multiple instances of field study in different units of the APHG curriculum throughout the academic year (e.g., two…

The purpose of this article is to introduce two easy-to-use analytical tools--OPTIC (Overview; Parts; Title; Interrelationships; and Conclusion) and SCRAP (Spatial-Temporal; Conditions, Connections, or Comparisons; Region; Aura, Association, or Analog; Pattern or Exceptions)--that can help teachers guide student learning with maps and photos.…

In this paper, the authors introduce a student project that can help students stay engaged in Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG) classrooms through the end of the year, through a project that can be implemented after the APHG exam is given. The tight curriculum schedule of APHG leaves little room for implementing student-centered learning…

Discussions are one of the activity types that help students build their content-related background knowledge, understanding, and concepts through various communication approaches. Students express and share their perspectives and ideas with other students through a small- or large-group discussion. The formats of discussions may vary; they may be…

The following research review is a companion to "Transforming Education for Holistic Student Development: Learning from Education System (Re)building Around the World" (Datnow et al., 2022), a summary report that explores the work of building and rebuilding education systems to support holistic student development in six systems around…

As gifted and advanced level leaders move to increasing efforts of inclusivity in their programs, there is a need to use evaluative measures focusing on equity for systemic change and growth. Equity Audits can provide leaders with a holistic perspective of their programming and how they can use the data to shift the culture, identify inequities…

Ten years ago, Sunnydale High School leaders worked with teachers and community members to create an international baccalaureate (IB)-for-all model to prevent racially and socioeconomically identifiable class levels. For nearly a decade, the program has been successful with stakeholders largely supporting the model. Following pandemic-related…