NAEP data affirm GTP’s unique importance to addressing key Mississippi education issues

The Global Teaching Project’s Advanced STEM Access Program provides promising high school students in rural, high-poverty Mississippi communities access to rigorous AP science courses their schools otherwise could not offer.

Key education data recently released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress—widely known as “The Nation’s Report Card”—and other authoritative sources affirm why that work is so important.

That data demonstrates GTP’s unique success in promoting high academic achievement among high school students from Mississippi’s most impoverished communities, thus addressing critical impediments to the state’s continued progress.

Mississippi has drawn national attention for educational gains it has made,notably in reading at lower grade levels, according to the NAEP.  Yet NAEP data also illuminate two critical areas where Mississippi continues to struggle:

• Performance Gaps Persist between Income Groups.  The performance gap between “economically disadvantaged” Mississippi students—who comprise 74 percent of the state’s public school students—and others has persisted over recent decades.  For example, the NAEP reported that in the most recent (2024) math test results for Mississippi’s 8th grade students, the “performance gap [between economically disadvantaged students and others] was not significantly different from that in 2000”, and, in fact, had widened slightly.  That performance gap is further exacerbated in higher grades—students in high-poverty school districts lack access to courses, especially in STEM, that would provide them the same opportunity as students in more affluent areas to develop academically.

• Few Mississippi Students Perform at “Advanced” Levels.  Though Mississippi’s average NAEP scores have tended to gain relative to national levels over the past two decades, the percentage of Mississippi students who score at “Advanced” levels—the students most likely to bring positive change to their communities—remains considerably below national levels.  The percentage of Mississippi students who score at Advanced levels are lower still for older students, and lowest of all for economically disadvantaged students, who trail both their Mississippi peers and students nationally by a wide margin.   Among 8th grade students, just one percent of economically disadvantaged students scored as Advanced in reading, and three percent in math.  Again, that performance gap is exacerbated in higher grades, particularly high school, as students in high-poverty school districts lack access to rigorous courses, most of all in STEM, that would provide the means to develop Advanced skills.

GTP has made unique progress addressing both those issues by promoting high academic achievement among students from Mississippi’s most impoverished communities. 

In fact, the only AP courses offered in schools serving Mississippi’s most impoverished communities are provided through GTP.  

In our nine years, GTP has worked with thousands of students in nearly 50 Mississippi high schools in districts designated by the U.S. Department of Education as “Rural, Low-Income School Districts”.   Many of those schools are in areas that are not just among the most impoverished in Mississippi, but in the nation.

GTP currently works with a majority of the 20 high schools serving Mississippi’s most impoverished school districts, according to U.S. Census Bureau poverty data, and GTP offers 27 AP STEM courses at those schools.  By contrast, none of the high schools in those high-poverty districts not served by GTP offer AP courses in any subject, according to College Board, which administers the AP program.

Moreover, in 2025, students from high schools served by GTP in Mississippi’s most impoverished communities achieved AP scores that were among the highest in the state, public or private, in AP Biology, AP Physics 1, and AP Computer Science Principles, earning college credit in the process.

That is a remarkable feat—fewer than 0.3 percent of Mississippi high school students even attempt the AP Physics 1 exam, for example, and fewer than half the students who took the test earned qualifying scores, the threshold required for college credit.  The numbers for the other AP subjects are comparable.

GTP also stands out nationally.  In the nation’s 50 most impoverished rural school districts, the only schools that offer AP Physics, and a majority of schools that offer AP Biology, AP Computer Science, or AP Statistics do so through GTP, according to recent College Board, Census, and U.S. Department of Education data.

We recognize the challenges our students continue to face, and will continue to press ahead in our work.