Rural Schools, Charter Enrollment, and Advanced Placement: Population-Level Evidence from Georgia

Using a two-stage Hurdle analysis, this study examines the performance of Advanced Placement (AP) classes in 480 secondary schools in Georgia, USA. Using Galster and Sharkey’s (2017) spatial foundations of inequality, this study found that charter status was associated with 87% lower odds of having any credit-eligible AP score in schools, with all charter rural schools in the study reporting no credit-bearing AP scores of 3 or higher. Rurality is associated with a lower expected number of credit-eligible AP scores in all three research questions. Moreover, Title I eligibility is associated with both 71% lower odds of having any credit-eligible AP scores and 67% lower expected count of credit-eligible AP scores. Lastly, with a three-unit reduction in the pupil-to-teacher ratio, the school can have 20% higher odds of any score and 26% more expected scores.