Low-Income Latino Students and California’s Early Assessment Program

Abstract

California’s Early Assessment Program is designed to notify students about their college readiness, encouraging them to take action to improve their skills during their senior year. The author uses qualitative methods and applies sense-making theory to examine how students attending majority Latino, low-income high schools make sense of the information the program provides. The findings suggest that participants’ limited prior knowledge of the program and shared views of standardized assessments influenced students’ perceptions of the program.