Arkansas School District and County Boundaries 2010-2011
Arkansas Population Over 18 Years of Age with Bachelor’s Degree or Higher (2010)
Arkansas Population Over 18 Years of Age with Some College or an Associates (2010)
Arkansas Population Over 18 Years of Age with a High School Diploma or GED (2010)
Arkansas Population Over 18 Years of Age with Less than a High School Diploma (2010)
This research was conducted to study the relationship between Advanced Placement (AP) participation in high school and its correlation with remediation rate, GPA, and credit hours received in the first year of college.
The Arkansas Research Center (ARC) examined 13,030 2009 Arkansas high school graduates that enrolled in an Arkansas college prior to the fall semester of 2009. To determine AP participation, we looked to see if a student had taken an AP exam sometime during high school. Since the exam is free for these students, and weighted credit (a grade of “A” would be equal to 5 points instead of 4 for a course not weighted), it is our assumption that the majority of AP students do take the AP exam. Of the 13,030 graduates of 2009 enrolled in an Arkansas college by fall 2009, 53% did not take AP courses during high school while the remaining 47% did. We also examined what kind of AP class was taken, specifically, if the student took a math, science, or English AP course.
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To improve school readiness skills of at risk children, Arkansas established the state funded pre-k program known as Arkansas Better Chance program in 1991. Over the last two decades, ABC has grown to serve almost 25,000 three and four year old children in the 2010/2011 school year and has been consistently ranked in the top ten in the United States for its program quality standards. ABC also has documented successes in student achievement highlighted by Hustedt, Barnett, and Jung’s (2008) study on the longitudinal effects of ABC which demonstrates the importance of funding high quality pre-k not only for improving the school success of children now, but to build a stronger foundation for Arkansas’ workforce tomorrow.
The purpose of this brief is to highlight a few of the more recent outcomes seen by participants in the ABC program compared to children that made use of the federally funded child care assistance program (referred to as the voucher program in this document) only or any combination of ABC and the voucher program.
