NEPC Review: The Broken Pipeline: Advanced Education Policies at the Local Level

The report also used publicly available data from the US Department of Education, as well as the data on the prevalence of Advanced Placement and participation in AP courses from the Depart- ment of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. [...] First, researchers of gifted and talented programs assert that the benefit of the programs is either minimal or nonexistent.9 The report ignores this side of the argument, focusing instead only on litera- ture supporting that those programs are beneficial for targeted students and emphasizing the consequent need to expand them to include more diverse groups of students. [...] Review of the Validity of the Findings and Conclusions The validity of the findings and conclusions of this report are compromised due to several factors. [...] To gauge the validity of the index (or the policy sug- gestions made by the report), an examination of the relationship between the index and the proportion of minority students among advanced learners may be needed. [...] Usefulness of the Report for Guidance of Policy and Practice The report provides updated findings on the prevalence of advanced programs in the nation.