College Prep for All? What We've Learned in Chicago
As state and national policymakers look for ways to improve the rigor of the high school curriculum and enhance students’ readiness for college, many have turned their attention to increasing course requirements in core academic subjects. The national policy group Achieve reports that about 20 states now require all students to take some version of a “default curriculum” to graduate—generally defined as four years of English and mathematics and three or more years of science and social studies. In a recent speech in Selma, Ala., U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan vowed to increase opportunities for all students to take college-preparatory classes, and called on the federal Department of Education’s office for civil rights to conduct compliance reviews in states and districts to accomplish that goal.
These coursework reforms have been equally popular among educators and the general public. In California, for example, parents, student advocates, and community organizations have aggressively campaigned for local districts and the state to adopt the University of California’s “A-G” coursework requirements as the prescribed curriculum for all students. Last May, in response to student and community concerns, the San Francisco board of education passed by a unanimous vote a resolution to adopt the A-G requirements as the default curriculum for all San Francisco public high schools.
The popularity of this approach to increasing curricular rigor and college readiness seems, at first glance, to make a lot of sense. Research has shown that students who take high-level course sequences learn more in high school and are more likely to attend and to perform better in college than students who do not take these classes. Yet despite the popularity of default-curriculum policies, we actually know surprisingly little about whether changing course requirements will necessarily lead to improved outcomes for students. This is because previous studies cited by many in the policy and reform communities do not fully correct for selection bias: that is, the fact that students who choose to take high-level classes are often the most motivated and high-achieving in their schools, and that the schools offering advanced courses are those with the capacity to teach them, and often are...
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