This memorandum provides information pertinent to the participation and performance of Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) examinations for 2020 graduates in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS). In 2020, 66.6 percent of MCPS graduates took one or more AP exams, a rate that was 20.8 and 28.3 percentage points higher…

This study focused on the validation of the Revised Sense of Purpose Scale (SOPS-2) with emerging adults. We used a sample of 681 college students aged between 18 and 25 years old. The results provided evidence for the factorial validity of the SOPS-2 designed to measure awareness of purpose, awakening to purpose, and altruistic purpose. The…

This study investigated the relationship between college students' perception of race-related barriers in career and educational development and their immediate (first-semester grade point average [GPA]) and long-term academic performance (4-year cumulative GPA) and the role of parents' instrumental and emotional support in moderating such…

Teacher racial diversity has been widely considered important in education. However, it remains unclear to what extent and how teacher racial diversity has been addressed at the federal, state, and district levels. In this study, we employed text mining to collect and analyze over three million documents at the federal, state, and district levels.…

Evidence of the short- and long- term benefits of Pre-K is so compelling that K-12 districts, state education departments, and even federal officials have considered offering universal Pre-K at no cost to children and families. In Chicago, a plan published in March 2019 aimed to provide free Pre-K for all Chicago four-year-olds, regardless of…

Through a Racial Formation Framework, this article explores how Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese American first-generation college students at a large research university perceive inequality in the United States. Drawing on 129 interviews, our findings suggest that students operate under a "Racial Formation Inequality Spectrum" in which…

Promise programs are proliferating across the United States, with wide variation in their design. Using national data on 33 Promise programs affecting single, 2-year colleges, this study examines program effects on first-time, full-time college enrollments of students by race/ethnicity and gender classification. Results suggest Promise programs…

As U.S. suburbs become more racially and ethnically diverse, they have the opportunity to make their schools similarly diverse. But integration is not assured, even in districts with significant demographic diversity. Iris Rotberg draws on Montgomery County Public Schools, a suburban Maryland district, to illustrate the opportunities and risks…

Given the substantial lack of racial diversity within the U.S. legal profession, it is important to understand how to improve the representation of racially minoritized students at law schools. This study uses panel data from the 2010s to consider several types of factors that may shape the number and percentage of incoming law school students…

Background: Students of color are disproportionately placed in special education throughout the United States. Prior research suggests that special education is used too often in high-poverty schools partly due to limited resources available to support struggling students (Skiba et al., 2006). More recent studies, however, suggest that…

Is under-representation of Black, Latinx, English learners (EL), and students from economically challenging communities in gifted programs due to inequality in early academic achievement or bias in the gifted identification process? Using three-level multilevel logistic models, we examine the degree to which the disparities in gifted…

If students are not able to access internships or career-based programming, they are likely to not acquire skills necessary to be college and career ready. In short, an abundance of research supports the problem of limited preparation of all students for college and career readiness in high school, which also affects success in college and/or…

Framing ethnography as a form of democratic inquiry, this study examines how the author worked with a group of Mexican and Vietnamese American adolescents to learn and apply ethnographic tools to interrogate language and literacy ideologies in their school and community. Examination of the students' findings reveals circulating ideologies and…

During the 2020-21 school year, Black students were less likely to learn in person than white students. We examine whether this difference persisted as the pandemic progressed. We find that the rate of in-person learning increased in 2021-22 but remained lower for Black students compared to white students. While several factors helped explain…

A prominent feature of education in the United States is the widespread endorsement of an "achievement narrative," which links individual motivation and effort to academic achievement. In mathematics and science domains, this narrative is often coupled with one that special intelligence is required for people to do math and science. We…