U.S. High School Courses Lack Rigor Needed to Prepare Students for College-Level Coursework

May 15, 2007

IOWA CITY, Iowa—U.S. high school core courses too often lack the rigor they need to adequately prepare students for college-level work, according to a new report from ACT, Inc. The research report, titled Rigor at Risk, suggests that even students who take the recommended college preparatory curriculum in high school are often ill-prepared to handle college material. The findings also suggest that many students lose academic momentum during their last two years of high school.

"We've been urging college-bound students to take the core curriculum in high school for many years," said Cynthia B. Schmeiser, president and chief operating officer of ACT's education division. "But now it is clear that just taking the right number of courses is no longer enough to ensure that students will be ready for college when they graduate. Students must take a number of additional higher-level courses in high school to have a reasonable chance of succeeding in college courses, and even that does not guarantee success."

View the full ACT research report (Rigor at Risk).

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Rather than simply accepting the fact that students must take more and more courses in high school to prepare themselves for college, ACT recommends that schools improve the quality and rigor of their core course offerings.

"It's neither realistic nor justifiable to expect all students to take more courses just to learn the skills they need to be ready for success after high school," said Schmeiser. "We have to ensure that the essential core courses provide all students with this knowledge."

The core curriculum recommended by ACT is based on recommendations made in the influential 1983 federal report A Nation at Risk. The ACT-recommended curriculum consists of four years of English and three years each of math (Algebra I and higher), science, and social studies. ACT score results have consistently shown that students who take this core curriculum are much more likely than those who don't to be prepared for college.

College readiness lags, however, even among those students who take the recommended coursework. Among ACT-tested 2006 high school graduates nationally who took the core curriculum, only around a fourth (26%) met all four of the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks in English, math, reading and science. The benchmarks represent a high likelihood that students will earn a "C" or higher in specific first-year college courses such as English composition, algebra, biology, and social science courses. Nearly one in five (19%) of those students met no benchmarks at all.

The report suggests that some students progress toward college readiness in high school, but many lose momentum during their last two years there. ACT tracked results from students taking its EXPLORE test for eighth graders, its PLAN test for 10th graders, and the ACT college admission exam, each of which has its own grade-specific College Readiness Benchmarks. While the results showed an incremental increase in the percentages of students meeting all four benchmarks from 8th through 12th grade (from 18 to 23 percent), they also showed a net increase between 10th and 12th grades in the percentages meeting none of the benchmarks (from 13 to 21 percent), as well as a rapid decline in the percentages meeting one to three benchmarks (from 68 to 56 percent).

"During the high school years, the rate of failure is exceeding the rate of success in terms of preparing students for college," said Schmeiser.

The report cites a number of factors that contribute to inadequate college preparation in high schools.

State diploma requirements—More than half of states do not require students to take specific core courses in math or science in order to graduate from high school.
State learning standards—The majority of states' learning standards are not aligned with college expectations and do not prescribe the skills and knowledge that students should learn in specific high school courses.
High school readiness—Many students enter ninth grade without having learned in elementary and middle school the skills they need to perform well in high school.
High school course grades—Whether because of grade inflation, lack of challenging content, or both, high grades in high school courses do not translate to college readiness for around half or more of ACT tested students taking Algebra II and physics.
Teacher quality—The quality of teachers and their qualifications to teach assigned courses have a dramatic impact on student learning.

But ACT research shows that high school courses can be made rigorous and that rigorous content can be effectively taught and learned. The organization identified nearly 400 high schools across the U.S. whose students have shown greater-than-average increases in scores on the ACT Mathematics or Science Tests. The score increases suggest that students at these schools benefit more from taking core courses such as Algebra II and chemistry than do students who take these courses at other schools nationwide.

The report recommends five action steps that states and schools can take to improve the rigor of high school core courses:

Specify the number and kinds of courses that students need to take to graduate from high school ready for college and work.
Align high school course outcomes with state standards that are driven by the requirements of postsecondary education and work.
Hire qualified teachers and provide training or professional development support to help them improve the quality of the courses they teach.
Expand access for all students to high-quality, vertically aligned core courses.
Measure results at the course level.