The purposes of this part are—
(1) to support State and local efforts to raise academic standards through advanced placement programs, and thus further increase the number of students who participate and succeed in advanced placement programs;
(2) to encourage more of the 600,000 students who take advanced placement courses each year but do not take advanced placement exams each year, to demonstrate their achievements through taking the exams;
(3) to build on the many benefits of advanced placement programs for students, which benefits may include the acquisition of skills that are important to many employers, Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores that are 100 points above the national averages, and the achievement of better grades in secondary school and in college than the grades of students who have not participated in the programs;
(4) to increase the availability and broaden the range of schools, including middle schools, that have advanced placement and pre-advanced placement programs;
(5) to demonstrate that larger and more diverse groups of students can participate and succeed in advanced placement programs;
(6) to provide greater access to advanced placement and pre-advanced placement courses and highly trained teachers for low-income and other disadvantaged students;
(7) to provide access to advanced placement courses for secondary school students at schools that do not offer advanced placement programs, increase the rate at which secondary school students participate in advanced placement courses, and increase the numbers of students who receive advanced placement test scores for which college academic credit is awarded;
(8) to increase the participation of low-income individuals in taking advanced placement tests through the payment or partial payment of the costs of the advanced placement test fees; and
(9) to increase the number of individuals that achieve a baccalaureate or advanced degree, and to decrease the amount of time such individuals require to attain such degrees.
(Pub. L. 89–10, title I, §1702, as added Pub. L. 107–110, title I, §101, Jan. 8, 2002, 115 Stat. 1606.)