Consequences of Differential Amounts of High School Course work: Will the New Graduation Requirements Help?

Abstract

This paper summarizes a study of course-taking patterns and achievement among 1980 high school seniors in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Washington, and California and among 1982 seniors in New York and California. High School and Beyond and College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) data revealed considerable variation across states in the amount of academic coursework completed, with New York and Pennsylvania students obtaining the most. After controlling for verbal and mathematics aptitude, performance on the CEEB achievement tests in American History, French, Math 2, and Chemistry was found to be positively associated with coursework in social studies, foreign language, mathematics, and physical science, respectively. Variation across tracks in academic coursework was even greater than variation across states, implying that the new graduation requirements will affect nonacademic track students the most. Findings suggest that efforts to increase academic coursework, typified by the new graduation requirements, should lead to higher performance overall.