On Course for Success: A Close Look at Selected High School Courses That Prepare All Students for College

A Forum — July 15, 2005

In this forum, researchers explained which strategies they found in common use at 10 high schools, nearly all with significant minority and low-income student populations, which excelled at preparing their students to handle college-level courses after graduation.

Vice principals of two of the schools then fleshed out those findings with their explanations of how those strategies – and some other factors that weren’t measured by the researchers – have helped prepare many of their college-bound students for postsecondary success.

Stephanie G. Robinson, a Principal Partner at the Education Trust, and Mary Stein, Manager of Elementary and Secondary School Programs at ACT, Inc. opened the forum by outlining the methods and findings of the study that led to publication of On Course for Success: A Close Look at Selected High School Courses That Prepare All Students for College.  The study was conducted by ACT, Inc., of Iowa City, Iowa, a not-for-profit educational measurement and services organization, and the Education Trust, a Washington-based non-profit whose mission is to help schools and colleges work for high academic achievement by all students.

ACT and Ed Trust selected 10 high schools in nine states for an in-depth look. At each school, scores on the ACT’s college admission test indicated that at least 65 percent of the test-takers would not need remedial courses in English in their freshman year of college, at least 35 percent were college-ready in math, and 24 percent were college-ready in science. Nine of the 10 schools had a student body that was 40 percent or more minority and/or 50 percent or more low-income.

The researchers then found out which classes in those subjects were taken by a large number of the college-ready students, interviewed those teachers, examined their teaching materials, observed their classes, and investigated further to find out which schoolwide policies and conditions also contributed to those students’ success.

   They found that four useful strategies were employed in all 10 of the schools:

• High-level college-oriented course content, usually well above their state’s standards, carefully sequenced from grades 9 through 12.
• Well-qualified teachers, many with advanced degrees in the subject they taught.
• Flexible pedagogical styles that allowed informal rapport with students and connected course content with other courses, popular culture and current events. The teachers described their primary teaching method as “lectures,” But the researchers observed so much interaction between students and teachers that they prefer to call that teaching mode “exposition and questioning.”
• Schools and the teachers of the courses supported students with tutorial help, both formally and informally.

Norman Grange, an Assistant Principal of Lewis Cass Technical High School in Detroit, said “good solid teaching and classroom management” account for how the citywide school has been able to maintain a tradition of excellence that stretches back to its founding some 90 years ago.

This year, 97 percent of Cass Tech’s 2,100 students were African American and 66 percent female. Students must pass an exam to get in and maintain a grade point average of 2.5 to stay in.  Grange used data from English courses at Cass Tech to demonstrate how quality extends through all levels of the curriculum and faculty. The preponderance of students who did well on the ACT English Test studied in regular classes, which serve the most students, even though a higher proportion of students in Advanced Placement classes got high ACT scores. He said the teachers of the non-AP courses are quiet, certified, unionized teachers with a little measure of job security who show up every day, are strong classroom managers, never refer discipline problems to the front office, often give and enforce deadlines for students to finish group or individual tasks, and tend to draw the learning out of the students, rather than lecture to them.

But, he warned, it is unfair to assign credit for great results to any particular course, because each student’s knowledge accumulates gradually. For example, he said, teachers of the same subject in different grades meet to discuss “vertical integration,” so that each year’s courses cover the skills and areas that the student will need the following year. Each student also has a major, such as biology or communications, which has the sequence and scope of required courses spelled out for each grade. Normed tests in English, science, math and the social sciences are used to supplement teachers’ judgments as to whether their students are on track.

Diane Maisel, an Assistant Principal at Murphy High School in Mobile, Ala., said the strengths of this crowded, urban school are its tradition, diversity and teachers.

The school, chartered as a white school 150 years ago, graduated many prominent Alabamans. Although the turmoil caused by resistance to the desegregation of the school in the 1960’s harmed its reputation, Murphy regained its prestige by the 1980’s and has maintained its reputation since then. Its tradition of academic excellence not only attracts students, it energizes its graduates, who, like the alumni of Cass Tech, often give or raise the money that pays for programs and services that are not covered by the school district’s budget.

Today, Murphy is proud of being racially and economically diverse. About 55 percent of the students are African American, 40 percent Caucasian and 5 percent from other backgrounds. About 2,200 of the students come from nearby neighborhood schools, and another 500 are allowed to come in from wealthier areas on a first-come, first-served basis.

The school includes the only International Baccalaureate diploma program in south Alabama. It has enthusiastic teachers who maintain orderly classrooms and follow the syllabus, and it offers after-school tutoring twice a week in English and twice a week in math. A little imagination also helps: When boys at Murphy would not show up for after-school tutoring, the athletic director arranged for boys to be tutored in the fieldhouse by men. Unlike Cass Tech, Murphy High School does not seek Title I funds, but does offer remedial programs for students with very low skills.

During the question and answer session, Grange and Maisel agreed that limited budgets make the retention of quality teachers one of their most daunting challenges. Cass Tech’s newer teachers sometimes flee to a more financially stable school district, because it is common for teachers in Detroit without seniority to get numerous lay-off warnings.  As a result, Murphy High School has lost experienced teachers to universities that can offer stipends and grants.

Panelists were asked whether their rigorous courses lead to high dropout rates.  Grange said many of the students who are forced out or choose to leave Cass Tech eventually graduate from another high school, keeping the school’s official graduation rate above 92 percent. Maisel said Murphy High School’s dropout rate is too high, but students who leave before graduation are given a packet with tips on how to plan their future and how to seek a GED.

On Course for Success: A Close Look at Selected High School Courses That Prepare All Students for College is available online from ACT’s website at http://www.act.org/path/policy/pdf/success_report.pdf

 

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