It’s Good to Be Popular in High School: A Look at Disparities in STEM AP Offerings in Northern California Public High Schools

Abstract

In 2018, in response to the proposed elimination of physics at a predominately Hispanic and socioeconomically disadvantaged (SED) high school, the Northern California/Nevada chapter of the AAPT investigated school demographics and their effect on physics offerings in public high schools in our region. As access was a key issue, the focus was on public, non-charter high schools, which are free to students and do not require winning a lottery for attendance. As reported previously, the data revealed that the percentage of Hispanic students and the percentage of SED students at a high school are highly correlated (r2=0.60). Additionally, these factors could be used as predictors of a school’s physics offerings. To determine if the disparities in course offerings extended through other Advanced Placement (AP) STEM classes, the data were further analyzed, revealing that as the popularity of an AP exam drops, so do the relative odds of it being offered, when comparing schools with different demographics. A Northern California public high school student is much more likely to get a strong selection of AP STEM classes if his/her school serves an affluent, non-Hispanic student majority rather than mostly poor, Hispanic students.