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Summary

• The District should explore new strategies to expand advanced coursework opportunities for students.

• Advanced coursework, like AP, IB, and dual enrollment, helps high school students gain college-level skills and credits.

• These programs boost college readiness, academic confidence, and essential skills like time management and critical thinking.

• Early and automatic enrollment in advanced classes can increase participation and success rates.

• Removing geographic barriers, like offering virtual and cross-enrollment options, can make advanced courses more accessible.

Our purpose as an education community is to help learners grow, to help them acquire the skills and character important to life success. A powerful means by which we can uphold that duty is to expose students to rigorous studies.

Students often access that upper-level content through advanced coursework programs. The most common forms of advanced coursework include Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB) and dual enrollment agreements. These are designed to mimic college-level study for high school students or give them access to introductory college courses outright. 

Our learners in the District of Columbia aren’t unfamiliar with such programs. About half of our public-school students enroll in an AP class before graduating. And more than 4 in 5 of our schools serving grades 9 through 12 offer AP classes as well as dual enrollment programs. What, though, can we do to give more of our students more advanced study opportunities?

That question inspired the expert witness panel convened by the State Board at its most recent public meeting. Panelists included local DC officials and advocates, as well as out-of-state policy professionals.

The benefits of advanced coursework

Challenging in ways beyond what’s typically expected for high schoolers, advanced courses afford many advantages for students who take them. 

Students who participate in advanced coursework programs gain notable preparation for their next step after high school. Students who take AP exams or participate in dual enrollment generally perform better in college, and they are likelier to graduate on time.^1,2,3 Advanced courses have even been shown to nurture the skills that are highly prized by employers like time management, critical thinking and project execution. 

Advanced coursework fosters more than just skills, too. Students who take advanced courses show marked improvements in their self-confidence and academic self-concepts. Such courses have also been observed to bolster student engagement in the classroom and lower absenteeism. 

Even financially, students who successfully complete advanced courses get a leg up. Earning college credit in high school presents savings opportunities to students as they begin their undergraduate studies in terms of both time and money. It can help students leapfrog entry-level college courses and begin choosing how to focus and specialize their education earlier than their peers. This accelerates students’ progress toward completing their degree. On the surface, that might seem small, but it can amount to thousands of dollars in savings and reduced debt loads.

Expanding advanced coursework opportunities

Exchanges between the State Board members and panelists illuminated several ways we can give more students access to these important opportunities.

Enroll students earlier.

“High school is too late to introduce students to advanced coursework,” said panelist Maureen Stover, former North Carolina Teacher of the Year and 2021 National Teacher of the Year finalist. 

Research corroborates her observation. Earlier enrollment in advanced courses—in elementary and middle school, that is—has been shown to increase a student’s likelihood of enrolling and succeeding in advanced courses in high school.

Enroll students automatically.

In 2018, North Carolina became the first state in the country to begin auto-enrolling students into advanced courses. They began with math courses, selecting students to auto-enroll based on objective performance on the state’s yearly math proficiency assessments. They anticipated that using an objective way to move students onto an advanced pathway would help identify more students who were ready to succeed in advanced courses and reduce bias in selecting students for the opportunity.

The policy has been wildly successful, Stover says. Eighteen percent more students enrolled in advanced math the year following implementation. And in 2025, North Carolina was one of only five states to see its 8th graders’ math performance improve.

Remove geographic constraints.

District students are currently limited in their pursuits for rigorous coursework to what’s available at the school they attend daily. The District does not have virtual AP offerings, nor does it have a policy for cross-enrollment. Perhaps leaders should find ways to perforate these rigid barriers. Sneha Shah-Coltrane, an official with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, attested to the success of virtual and cross-enrollment practices in her state. These, she emphasized, we’re invaluable for “smaller schools and smaller districts that haven’t been able to fund an AP teacher or fill an AP class,” thus expanding opportunities for those with few or none naturally.

Strengthening our resolve and partnership

“How do we think outside the box?” The question, Shah-Coltrane told the State Board, was central for North Carolina’s decision-makers when they considered ways to expand student opportunities for advanced coursework. 

The State Board’s panel discussion gives our own city’s education community much food for thought on how we too can transcend the box we currently find ourselves in. It’s time we go forth and implement practices to give District students more opportunities to excel.