Increasing Student Access to AP Computer Science Programs: An Independent Evaluation of the Lone Star AP CS Program
Amid an increasing awareness of the importance of computer science in nearly every aspect of society, the U.S. Department of Education’s Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant program has funded several projects related to computer science education. One of these is Lone Star AP CSP, an early-phase grant awarded to the National Mathematics + Science Initiative in 2019 to increase student access to and success in the Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science Principles (CSP) course in Texas high schools.
The key components of the program, which began in summer 2020 and was designed to last for three years, were teacher professional development, supports for students, and supports for schools. Thirty-seven schools participated.
AIR conducted an independent evaluation of the program, including studies of implementation, impact on teachers’ instruction, and impact on students’ participation in and performance on the AP CSP exam. The final report of the evaluation was released in August 2025.
Summary of the Evaluation and Findings
The implementation study examined whether the program was implemented with fidelity in each of its three years and the extent to which participants made use of the program and found it useful.
- Key findings: There was no year in which all three components were implemented with fidelity; in addition, teacher and student uptake levels were low but increased over time. Lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic may have hampered implementation efforts.
The study of impact on teachers’ instruction examined the effect of the program on three instructional practice outcomes that were derived from a study-administered survey of Lone Star AP CSP teachers along with a volunteer sample of AP CSP teachers not in the program.
- Methodology: Separately in each of the three years of the program, the instructional practices impact study used a quasi-experimental matched comparison group design and an analysis-of-covariance (regression) estimation model to examine the effect of Lone Star AP CSP on each of the three survey-based outcomes.
- Key findings: The evaluation found that the Lone Star AP CSP program had positive effects on participating teachers’ instructional practices in the first and second years of implementation but not in the third.
The student impact study examined school-level outcomes in the analysis of the impact of the Lone Star AP CSP program on student AP CSP performance and participation.
- Methodology: Separately in each of the three outcome years, the study used a quasi-experimental matched comparison group design and an analysis-of-covariance (regression) estimation model to examine the effect of Lone Star AP CSP on each outcome, followed by meta-analysis to combine the estimates from two samples of schools (those that had AP CSP exam takers in the baseline year and those that did not).
- Key findings: The program did not have a significant positive impact on the percentage of AP CSP exam takers that received a qualifying score on the exam in any of the three years, nor did the program have a significant positive impact on schools’ percentages of students in grades 9–12 that took the AP CSP exam in any of the three years. In fact, in Years 2 and 3 the program’s effect on student participation in the AP CSP exam was significantly negative.
The evaluators note that relatively low levels of program implementation and uptake probably help explain why the program did not achieve its hypothesized positive impacts on students. They also acknowledge that the comparison schools included in the analyses could have been implementing other interventions pertaining to AP CSP.
