Boston – Feb. 18, 2022 –Many students don’t have the opportunity to take Advanced Placement® (AP®) classes due to limited availability of AP® course offerings or certified instructors to teach the classes. To help, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (MA DESE) partnered with VHS Learning to create the STEM Advanced Placement Access Expansion Opportunity, which enables up to 1,500 students within the state to take free AP® courses during the 2022-2023 academic year.
The STEM Advanced Placement Access Expansion Opportunity is designed to increase Massachusetts high schoolers’ participation in advanced coursework. The statewide initiative will provide select high schools with access to up to eight AP® STEM courses free of charge.
Data from the DESE’s Student Longitudinal Database System reveals that students who take AP® coursework are more likely to enroll in college. In fact, 86% of high school students who take at least one AP® course attend college. An even higher percentage (92%) of students who take two or more of such courses go on to postsecondary education. However, only 63% of Massachusetts high schoolers who do not take an AP® course attend college.…Read More