Professors Tom Conroy (Urban Studies) and Alex Briesacher (Sociology), along with students pictured at the right, Abigail Holden (Sociology) and Elizabeth Stone (Urban Studies/Environmental Science), received Summer Undergraduate Research Grants to continue their work on AP Participation and Performance in Worcester Public Schools. Following the completion of a quantitative study entitled AP & WPS, Part 1 in May, Conroy and Briesacher launched a qualitative study that looks at the impact of AP Exam-taking on student academic confidence and their college-going plans. Their findings from the initial study raised many questions they wanted to ask and answer. For example, publicly-accessible data shows that WPS’ failure rate is the highest among Massachusetts Gateway Cities with school districts of more than 10,000 students. This is in large part because WPS' testing rate is much higher than other districts. In no year since 2007 have more WPS students passed their AP Exams t
A blog for the activities of the Department of Urban Studies at Worcester State University.