Automatic Enrollment is a Promising Equity Strategy for Advanced Education

Automatic enrollment in advanced coursework is gaining a lot of attention, with new laws in a handful of states and bills under consideration in others. It is generating a great deal of discussion and, depending on one’s perspective, either consternation or excitement. Automatic enrollment is also a key feature of the Advanced Coursework Equity Act that was recently re-introduced by Sen. Booker and Rep. Castro. Given its growing popularity, related controversies, and not insignificant policy momentum, automatic enrollment (also referred to as auto-enrollment, mandatory enrollment, or opt-out policies) deserves close examination.

At its core, auto-enrollment is a simple idea: Students who show evidence of advanced achievement are automatically placed in advanced coursework (in contrast to strategies that put all students in advanced courses regardless of readiness evidence, such as requiring all students to take algebra in 8th grade). No referrals, no additional testing, no mandatory info sessions for parents and caregivers – you’re in the advanced course, period. Such a practice removes requirements, such as the need for a teacher recommendation, that often act as barriers to advanced learning. There are variations for what auto-enrollment looks like in practice (e.g., how advanced achievement is determined, the degree to which students can opt out of the placement, whether district participation is optional or mandatory), but it comes down to high achieving students being placed in advanced courses.

Auto-enrollment probably strikes many people as common sense, but that is not how things usually work. One of the most important research findings in recent years is that advanced students (as determined by national norms, not local norms) are present in the vast majority of schools in this country, even high-poverty, low-performing schools. Yet White, Asian, and upper income students end up enrolling in advanced coursework at much higher rates than other students. This phenomenon, among other factors, leads to the growth of excellence gaps – achievement gaps at advanced levels of student achievement.

As a case in point, see this recent article by Donald Thompson, a math teacher at Anacostia High School in Washington, DC. Only 15% of Anacostia students are proficient in reading, 10% in math. Yet when he and his colleagues took a careful look at their student data, they found, “7-14% of our students qualified as gifted based on national norms … In a school where the vast majority of students are struggling, giftedness wasn’t even on our radar” (emphases in original). He notes that, “Our students can be the best and brightest if we can just get past their zip code and provide the opportunities they deserve.”

Mr. Thompson’s account matches my experience working with districts around the country, in that committed educators are often conditioned not to see the academic excellence occurring right in front of them. The deficit focus of many of our schools creates contexts in which exceptional performance is not seen, let alone looked for. A major hurdle to improving equity in advanced education is the widespread belief that low-income, Black, Hispanic, and Native American students only rarely exhibit advanced performance. This simply is not the case.

In a related vein, I suspect the long-term use of automatic enrollment policies will also address what I call the “we don’t have” myth (e.g., “Sure, challenging gifted students is important, but we don’t have those kids in my school, because my students are all low-income”).

After studying automatic enrollment for the past few months, the following conclusions feel reasonable:

  • Auto-enrollment is a form of universal screening – and possibly universal screening with local norms, depending on implementation – strategies with considerable research support for improving equity in advanced education.
  • Participation in such programs needs to rely on some sort of evidence to avoid the algebra-for-all initiatives that have mixed records of success. Those programs tend to not work well for students who aren’t ready for the rigorous curriculum, and there’s not much evidence there’s enough differentiation in those programs to push already advanced students. In words of my colleague, Scott Peters, “If it works for everyone, it’s not advanced.” I would add a corollary: If you give it to everyone and it doesn’t work for many of them, it’s not a good education program.
  • In some ways, auto-enrollment can be viewed as a treatment-as-diagnosis approach, which is not uncommon within medicine and other applied fields (and has been used for a long, long time). Want to know which economically-vulnerable students have the potential to learn at advanced levels? Give them the opportunity and see who learns at high levels.
  • There are many reasons to believe it works but few studies that provide convincing evidence (see an exception here). Although several advocates referred me to “the research,” I found lots of impressive anecdotal or descriptive evidence but not much inferential research. That’s to be expected given the relative novelty of this policy intervention, and the effects of the policies need to be studied much more comprehensively. In addition to efficacy research, we need studies that examine the psychology of the intervention (e.g., Why do some students opt-out?).
  • Improving access to advanced coursework is necessary but not sufficient to close excellence gaps. Students who have not previously experienced rigorous coursework may need additional support to take advantage of their advanced opportunities, much in the way that increasing access to AP courses for Black and Hispanic students did not automatically translate into improved AP test performance. Improving opportunity is a mile marker on a much longer journey.
  • Auto-enrollment probably helps students already performing at high levels, but it does nothing (directly) to help students with potential who are not yet working at advanced levels.
  • As a result, auto-enrollment should not be viewed as a stand-alone equity intervention. It will likely help close excellence gaps, but of and by itself it will not close those gaps. It should be one piece of a comprehensive model for improving equity in advanced learning, including support for enrolled students who are new to advanced courses, frontloading programs that help students of high potential perform at advanced levels, and greatly improved teacher and principal preparation regarding advanced learners and learning.

For these reasons, the comprehensive set of research-supported interventions proposed in the Advanced Coursework Equity Act is appealing and represents the most promising federal intervention to promote advanced achievement in many years (see this profile of a district in Arizona that is successfully using similar interventions). Strategies that challenge advanced learners and improve access and enrollment have much better odds for closing excellence gaps then those that are more narrowly focused.

I have several colleagues who are concerned about these policies and their unintended consequences. Given the dearth of research, those concerns are not unfounded. But advocates for advanced education should support these policies. In districts around the country, there is a growing tendency to address equity in advanced education by eliminating those services (for example, San Francisco, Vancouver, recent proposals in California, Virginia, NYC). That’s a strange approach (removing opportunity is always a poor path to equity), but it is becoming common.

In contrast, automatic enrollment implicitly endorses the value of advanced education, choosing to remove barriers to those services rather than eliminate them. For that reason alone, advocates for advanced learning should embrace auto-enrollment and help districts implement it as part of a comprehensive set of strategies for eliminating excellence gaps.