‘No-Cost’ Aspen Program Requires 24 School Districts to Hand Over Student Data by Race
Earlier this year, the Aspen Institute’s Education & Society Program and the College Boardannounced a multiyear program, running from September 2026 through 2029, to increase the share of low-income and “missing middle” students who take Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, or dual-enrollment courses.
The pitch is simple: it’s free. Applications were due June 15, and the application says, “District leaders commit to a no-cost, three-year engagement that includes participation in biannual convenings, virtual learning sessions, and Learning Lab site visits.”
According to emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, the first convening was held in Aspen, Colorado, from Sept. 20-23, and the hosting organizations paid for participants’ flights, hotels, and meals. A second convening is being planned for spring 2027.
But free travel is only part of what districts receive, and “no-cost” describes the fee, not the obligations.
According to information provided to interested applicants, districts must, before acceptance, sign a data-sharing agreement to “provide current disaggregated data on advanced coursework participation.” That means the number and percentage of students enrolled in Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and dual-enrollment courses, “disaggregated by race, ethnicity, income status, and other locally relevant student groups.”
District leaders are also required to provide course participation, pass rates, and outcomes for student groups enrolled in advanced coursework. The agreement also asks for information on “college enrollment … and other indicators that help districts identify whether advanced coursework participation is translating into stronger postsecondary outcomes.”
In other words, participating districts have agreed to hand over enrollment and outcome data broken out by student demographics, for the purpose of boosting Advanced Placement participation and socially engineering advanced coursework. And the request for racial data raises a question. The program’s public materials name low-income and “missing middle” students as the target. Why, then, does it ask for race?
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