Four ways to help H.S. students become college- and career-ready |
On Board Online • March 26, 2012
By Paul Heiser
Senior Research Analyst
Almost 3,000 high schools in the United States don’t offer Algebra II. And Patte Barth finds that appalling.
“Without Algebra II, you probably don’t go to college,” said Barth, director of the National School Boards Association’s Center for Public Education. “If you do go, you are probably going to end up in remediation. Without Algebra II, you don’t become an auto mechanic. Without it, you don’t get into one of the growing service jobs in growing fields like communications.”
Barth and the Center for Public Education recently issued a report that evaluated what research says about making students “college- and career-ready.” Generally, students who take challenging courses in high school tend to do better in whatever is being measured – scores on college entrance exams, college graduation rates, college grade point averages, etc.
While the ideal way to measure the effectiveness of a given program would involve randomly enrolling students in certain programs and comparing their results with peers, such research is rare if not unknown. Available studies have compared outcomes for students who chose to take challenging curriculums with those that have not.
Because research indicates that college-level skills overlap with the skills needed to succeed in the workplace, the findings also apply to the goal of making high school graduates employable. The report suggests school districts:
1. Offer higher-level math.
Clifford Adelman, senior research analyst for the U.S. Department of Education, has identified a five-rung mathematics ladder consisting – from highest to lowest – of calculus, pre-calculus, trigonometry, Algebra II and less than Algebra II. For each rung, the odds of completing a bachelor’s degree more than doubled. Adelman calculates that each rung increases the chance of earning a degree by a factor of 2.6.
[Editor’s Note: In New York State, the second and third rungs are covered in a single Regents exam called Algebra 2/Trigonometry.]
The makers of the ACT exam looked at seniors at 400 high schools who had higher-than-expected increases in math scores on the ACT. The study found that students improved their ACT mathematics scores by an average of 4.2 points (from 17.4 to 21.6) after taking Algebra II. The study also found that students at these schools who took Algebra II or a higher-level math course were more likely than all ACT test-takers to enroll in college the following fall and return to college for their second year. Three-fourths of students with coursework of Algebra II or greater returned for a second year of college, compared with 66 percent among all ACT test-takers.
2. Offer Advanced Placement courses.
One study followed more than 67,000 eighth-graders in Texas and found that students who took AP courses were at least twice as likely to graduate from college in five years compared with those who did not.
The gains were particularly noteworthy for under-represented minority and low-income students. For African Americans, only 10 percent of those who did not take an AP course graduated in five years, compared with 37 percent of those who took an AP course but did not pass the exam and 53 percent of those who took an AP course and passed the exam. The statistics were almost identical for Hispanic students.
A study that analyzed data from the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) found that even those students who scored a 1 or 2 on their AP calculus and/or physics exam (considered failing on the AP’s 5-point scale) performed better in college than their peers who had not taken AP courses. U.S. students who “failed” the AP calculus exam still outperformed students in all other industrialized countries. In physics, those “failing” the AP physics exam outscored students in more than half of participating countries.
3. Offer dual enrollment programs.
Dual enrollment programs are another way of enabling high school students to take college-level courses. Three types of arrangements typically exist for dual enrollment programs: college courses taught at the high school by faculty from partner colleges; college courses taught on the partner college campus; and college courses taught through distance learning (via the Internet or television).
Researchers at the University of Arizona found that students who had participated in that university’s dual enrollment programs experienced fewer declines in grade point average as they transitioned into higher education when compared to other University of Arizona freshmen.
Researchers at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University found beneficial effects of dual enrollment on high school graduation rates for students in Florida and New York. Reviewing the performance of more than 300,000 dual enrollment students, the study found that students with these courses were more likely than others to graduate from high school, enroll in college, begin college at a four-year institution and stay in college at least two years.
4. Offer early college programs.
The principle behind these programs is to offer engaging, rigorous courses early in students’ high school careers that prepare them to take college courses before high school graduation – sometimes allowing them to earn an associate’s degree in the process.
So far, available data show that these programs have had success in educating students at risk of dropping out before graduating. Overall, 92 percent of students who entered early college high schools as ninth graders graduated in 2008, which compares favorably to the 72 percent rate reported nationally. In addition, 86 percent of graduates from Early College High Schools enrolled in college in the fall following high school, compared with a national rate of 66 percent.
Students also showed favorable progress in a study of nearly 6,200 early college high school graduates from schools with at least one four-year cohort of students. Among these students, 24 percent earned an associate’s degree or two years of college credit while in high school, and 44 percent earned at least one year of college credit. Another study found that students from these programs had learned coping strategies in high school that led them to seek help from teachers, use writing centers and other campus resources, and restrict their work hours to accommodate their schoolwork.
The Center for Public Education recommends school districts track data on how their graduates perform in the first year of college, if they do not do so already. Higher education persistence rates, grade point averages, and college completion rates are other data sets of interest.
According to the Data Quality Campaign, data systems in 49 states are now able to connect high school and post-secondary data, and 39 states are set up to provide feedback reports to high schools, although many high schools still don’t receive this information. At a relatively low cost, the National Student Clearinghouse can provide aggregate data on the post-secondary performance of a school’s graduates.
The report is available at www.centerforpubliceducation.org.