Congressman Cohen Introduces Diversity Advancements in Accelerated Academic Programs Act

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) today introduced the Diversity Advancements in Accelerated Academic Programs (D.A.A.A.P.) Act, aimed at improving diversity by creating equity offices in state education departments or local education agencies to encourage programs to improve diversity in Advanced Placement (AP) and Gifted and Talented (GT) academic programs.

In pilot programs nationwide, a shift to a Universal Screening process to identify eligible students for accelerated learning programs has shown an increase in access to more rigorous instruction through GT programs for students who may have otherwise been overlooked by the Teacher Recommendation process. A recent study by Vanderbilt University found that black and ethnically marginalized students are far less likely to be placed in gifted programs, even if they have the same test scores as their white peers, and even more so if their teacher is white, under the Teacher Recommendation Screening process.

Congressman Cohen made the following statement:

"The Diversity Advancements in Accelerated Learning Programs Act would encourage school districts to allocate funding towards the creation of district-wide equity offices in order to help develop programs, and promote the use of a Universal Screening process in order to improve diversity in the applicant pool for GT and AP courses. Once established, these equity offices would help address other inequalities by raising student academic achievement, improving the fairness of screening processes, and fairly determining eligibility for accelerated learning programs."

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