About the Advanced Placement® (AP®) Success Tools
Our Advanced Placement (AP) Success Tools are the result of 18 months of work with AP educators. In early 2021, with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Mass Insight established the AP Action Community to address issues of disproportionality in AP for historically marginalized students.
We worked with six high schools from the New England region. Teams at each participating school consisted of AP teachers, non-AP teachers, counselors, and administrators. Using continuous improvement methodologies, these teams systematically tested a wide array of strategies to increase AP enrollment and success amongst students who are Black, Latino, and/or from low-income backgrounds. In addition, administrative teams combining district and school-level officers, examined the extent to which larger structural conditions—such as management of time, money, people, programs, and policies—supported equitable outcomes in AP at their schools.
The AP Success Tools were inspired, developed, and field-tested in the context of this work with our partner schools. They have proven to be useful, job-embedded tools and we hope you find them helpful as well! Feel free to use these tools independently or in conjunction with each other to optimize equitable outcomes in your AP program. These tools are designed as stand-alone job-embedded tools. The use of all three tools will optimize outcomes in your AP program.
Learn More About Each Tool
AP Equity Self-Assessment
This tool will help your team assess the extent to which your school and/or district AP program is promoting equitable student outcomes. Your AP team will be able to determine how the management of time, money, people, AP program, and policies support the needs of historically marginalized students in AP.
AP On-Track Framework
This resource describes the experiences educators can provide to AP students throughout the school year to help them stay on track for AP success. Find helpful ideas about what educational experiences to consider implementing in your classroom at different critical periods during the year.
Classroom Strategies for AP Success
This is a resource that compiles over 100 classroom strategies to support the success of students who are Black, Latino, and/or from low-income backgrounds in their AP coursework. Strategies support the development of students’ academic and non-academic skills as well as the improvement of instructional quality.