Rising Up

Eight years ago, a California school district abolished a two-tiered system for academic haves and have-nots and replaced it with one pointing all students toward college. It's paying off.

As an aspiring actress, Monica Pérez had to go to Lincoln High School, the magnet campus for visual and performing arts in California’s San Jose Unified School District. She spent her freshman year at another school waiting to get in, and when she finally enrolled in the popular school near downtown San Jose in 10th grade, she marveled at the array of theater, music, and dance classes she could choose from.

But even more striking, she says, was the academic load. Classes such as algebra II, an elective at her former high school, were now required. To graduate on time from Lincoln High in 2007, she must take an extra year each of math,...