Secondary Students Take Harder Courses, But What Is the Impact?

 

Released on April 13 by the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), America’s High School Graduates, the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) High School Transcript Study, finds that the percentage of high school graduates completing a “rigorous” curriculum, which includes higher-level math and science courses, increased from 5 percent in 1990 to 13 percent in 2009. At the same time, the percentage of students who took less than a standard curriculum of at least four credits of English and three each in social studies, mathematics, and science, declined from 60 percent in 1990 to 25 percent in 2009.

 I am baffled why remediation rates and college completion rates have not improved given this impressive increase in college prep course completion in secondary school.