From enrollment to completion: Supporting equitable outcomes in challenging coursework

One set of questions invites participants to advise the school featured in the case, and a second set broadens the discussion to high school education. [...] For example, the percentage of the school’s Latinx students enrolled in at least one CCR course (a term used by the Connecticut State Department of Education to encapsulate Advanced Placement, honors and college-level courses, and career-focused courses such as accounting and business management) rose from 50% in 2015-16 to 82.5% in 2020-21. [...] Increasingly, the school is enacting strategies aimed at closing the gap between the numbers of students enrolling in advanced courses and the numbers actually excelling in the classes. [...] “It’s not just good enough to offer the AP classes and to have students in them, it’s providing the family and the students all the information necessary as to what it’s like to be in an AP class.” - District leader Maloney has taken several steps to demystify both the content that will be taught in advanced classes and the student effort that will be required to succeed in them. [...] To determine the effectiveness of recent efforts, Maloney staff plan to continue to monitor several key data points related to student success in advanced coursework over the coming years, including student survey data regarding students’ sense of belonging and support in challenging courses, class passage rates, and the percentage of each student subgroup meeting a benchmark on at least one colle.