The U.S. Department of Education is weighing changes to its signature Civil Rights Data Collection for the coming school year, including asking districts for new information on computer science and internet connectivity, while scaling back requirements for collecting Advanced Placement test data.
The department wants to stop asking districts for data on how well students do on the tests but would keep in place how many students take them.
That’s caused concern among some educators, civil rights groups, and the College Board, which sponsors AP. They’re worried that looking only at participation in the courses will gloss over whether students, including historically disadvantaged groups, are mastering college-level work.
The collection tracks everything from school suspensions to early-childhood education to access to advanced coursework. Both of President Barack Obama’s secretaries of education pointed to the civil rights data collection to highlight resource disparities between high- and lower-poverty schools.
