Rigorous Courses Close Achievement Gaps Between Urban and Non-urban Students, Study Reveals

January 15, 1998

WASHINGTON, DC—When urban high school students complete rigorous courses—even in the poorest school districts—they outperform their inner-city counterparts who do not take those courses and significantly reduce achievement gaps between urban and non-urban students preparing for college.

This is a key finding in the first-ever study on the impact of course-taking in urban public schools, released today by the Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS), a coalition of the nation's largest urban school systems, and ACT, Inc., which administers the ACT Assessment Program for college admission. Charting the Right Course: A Report on Urban Student Achievement and Course-Taking also reveals that, when both urban and non-urban students take higher level courses, achievement gaps remain.

The 15-page report examines the ACT Assessment scores for 55,334 June 1997 high school graduates of Council member districts, taking into account the impact of specific course sequences, student ethnicity and gender, as well as poverty levels.

"This study indicates that inner-city students, regardless of poverty, can rise to higher standards if given the chance," said Council Executive Director Michael Casserly. "But completing tougher courses alone is not going to eliminate the gaps."

"The most important finding of the report is a confirmation of what we've been telling students for years: that taking a rigorous course of study in high school is their surest way to prepare for success in college," said ACT President Richard Ferguson.

Urban students who take core courses in high school—four years of English and three or more years each of social studies, science and mathematics—generally earn higher scores on the ACT Assessment for college admissions and are better prepared for college coursework than their inner-city counterparts who do not take these courses, the report indicates. What's significant is that when ACT scores of urban students completing rigorous courses are compared with students nationally, the achievement gap closes substantially.

Charting the Right Course points out that if all ACT test takers in urban schools were to complete the core courses, the gap in scores between urban and non-urban students could close by 44 percent in English, 61.1 percent in mathematics, 80 percent in reading and 34.8 percent in science. The gap in composite ACT scores could close by 39.1 percent.

But if all ACT test-takers nationally completed core courses, the gap between urban and non-urban students would basically remain the same in English and composite scores. And the gap would be slightly wider in mathematics, reading and science reasoning.

"In other words," according to the report, "the achievement gap between urban students and their fellow students nationally would remain approximately the same if everyone were to start taking rigorous coursework. Closing the gap will require urban students to improve at a faster rate than the nation."

The report also delineates the impact of wealth on urban schools. Students attending districts with relatively small Title I populations achieve much higher ACT scores than their counterparts in poorer districts. Regardless of poverty level, however, urban students completing rigorous courses in high school still outperform students who do not take the tougher courses.

Urban students in the poorest school districts, for instance, who completed five years of high school mathematics averaged 20.5 on the ACT Assessment, while those in relatively poor cities scored 22.8, and those in less poor cities scored 24.5. These scores compare to an urban average of 22.8 and a national average of 25.2 for students taking the same challenging courses. The maximum achievable score on the ACT is 36.

Although the study indicates that rigorous courses can close achievement gaps, it also notes that course-taking alone can not eliminate gaps. These can be eliminated only if there is a concentrated effort by the states, federal government, local governments, parents, businesses and the community to play major roles in improving the quality of urban public schools.

Of the 49 big-city school districts studied in the report, 10 percent had 1997 ACT Assessment composite score averages at or above the national ACT average score of 21.0. The high-achieving school districts were Clark County (Las Vegas), Nev.; Portland, Ore.; Omaha, Neb.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; and Tucson, Ariz.

Moreover, 27 public school systems had ACT composite scores at or above the CGCS average composite score of 18.7, with 22 districts below the urban average.

Charting the Right Course also describes "promising practices" from urban districts that are successfully preparing students for college and gives recommendations on how to close achievement gaps.