Verbal Ability and Socioeconomic Status of 9th and 12th Grade College Preparatory, General, and Vocational Students

Abstract

High schools in this country provide three basic programs: college preparatory, vocational education, and the general program. National data collected by Project TALENT have been analyzed for the first time and show that the two programs with defined goals, college preparatory and vocational education, enroll students from markedly different socioeconomic and academic ability populations. To provide separate schools for these two curriculums would result in a great deal of socioeconomic segregation. The general program, lacking defined goals other than a high school diploma, is the only program that shows a percentage increase in low academic ability and low socioeconomic students from the 9th to the 12th grade. This result holds for both males and females and is in spite of a very high dropout rate for both sexes. Implications of these findings are presented.