{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.019990913221263062, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0009086778736937755, 'mean_word_length': 5.099722991689751, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Introduction to the Research Articles

Ramping up the rigor and quantity of the courses that students in high school take has become a major focus of U.S. federal and state education policymakers. Yet not all students enroll in these courses at equal rates, and many are concerned that the growing importance of advanced courses will exacerbate educational attainment gaps between race, poverty, and gender groups in years to come. The article explores the reasons for the wide disparities in advanced course-taking using data on the census of high school students in Floridas public schools. The authors show that all of the white advantages over black and Hispanic students and nearly all of the non-poor advantage over poor students are explained by students' characteristics before they reach high school, most notably their scores on 8th-grade statewide exams. The findings support greater investments in disadvantaged (black, Hispanic, and poor) children long before they enter high school. At the same time, the tremendously high course-taking rates of Asian students, and the modest advan tage of females over males, are not fully explained by pre-high school adjustments revealing that K-8 reforms are unlikely to eliminate these demographic gaps. High schools matter too, but in ways contrary to conventional wisdom. The authors find no disparities in access to advanced courses; the overwhelming major ity of students from all groups attend schools with higher-level course offerings. In fact, black and Hispanic students attend schools that increase their likelihood of tak ing advanced courses relative to observably similar white students. This result is in contrast to studies of racial test score gaps among younger students where black and Hispanic students are typically disserved by their elementary and middle schools. Digging deeper, the study finds the explanation may be magnet schools: Black and Hispanic students are more likely to attend magnet schools, where course-taking rates among all demographic groups are quite high. Thus, it appears that a reallocation of students to different schools is unlikely to remedy course-taking disparities and may, in fact, increase them.