High School Education Curriculum

Public high schools in the U.S. are changing to meet current student needs. Employers estimated that almost 40 percent of recent high school graduates did not have the job skills and knowledge required for entry-level positions, and only 18 percent of the college instructors believe that most students entering college extremely well or very well prepared. The government report, A Nation at Risk, and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 have affected the high school curriculum and core academic subject and course requirements. New innovations such as career clusters, adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and dual enrollment in college are changing high school curriculum organization.

Keywords Advanced Placement; Carl D. Perkins Vocational & Technical Education Act; Career Clusters; Core Academic Subjects; Dual Enrollment; High School Exit Exams; National Assessment of Educational Progress; No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB); Placement Exams

Overview

The first form of public education began in the 1600s in the New England colonies. By the 1700's, the influx of people from different countries with different religions led to the rejection of church-sponsored views in education and the desire for private schooling, which became the norm (Thattai, n.d.). Before the 1800s, elementary and secondary education in the U.S. was locally or regionally organized, and nearly all schools ran solely on private funds ("History of Education," n.d.). Until the 1840s, education was available primarily to wealthy people (Thattai, n.d.). Massachusetts passed the first laws for free public education in 1852 ("History of Education," n.d.). By the end of the 1800s, “free, public education at the elementary level was available for all children. By 1918, all states had laws requiring children to at least attend elementary school” (Thattai, n.d., p. 5).

The first publicly supported secondary school in the United States was founded in 1635 in Boston, but by the late 1800s, secondary education was mainly achieved through personal tutoring or by confidential academies ("Public Education in the United States," n.d.; Thattai, n.d.). Public funding of secondary education rarely occurred, but in 1874, a court decided in Michigan that local property taxes could be used to support high schools ("Public Education in the United States,", n.d.). By the end of the 1900s, most states had laws requiring mandatory education to the age of 16 (Thattai, n.d.). In 1900, only about 10 percent of children age 14 to 17 were enrolled in high school, and most of them came from wealthy families. Between the years of 1900 and 2000, the amount of high school graduates rose from six percent to almost 88 percent ("Public Education in the United States," n.d.). According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the high school dropout rate steadily declined from 1990 (12%) to 2011 (7%). However, across this period, Hispanic and African American students were more likely than White students to drop out, although the gap narrowed. In 1990, the dropout rate for Hispanic students was 32 percent, while in 2011 it was 14 percent; over the same period, for African American students, the dropout rate declined from 13% to 7%, and for White students from 9% to 5%.

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled agreeingly in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that it was unconstitutional to withstand racial segregation in any public schooling system. The federal government's involvement in improving and financing public schools changed dramatically with the National Defense Education Act of 1958 and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. With these two acts, Congress confronted the idea of expanding educational opportunities for poor children and improving instruction in important subjects like math, science, and foreign languages (Thattai, n.d.).

Individual states are given authority over their own public education systems, and local districts watch over school administration but overlook the licensing requirement and federal and state laws, which supersede local authority. Most public schools rely on local property taxes to meet expenses. In 1940, local property taxes covered about 68 percent of expenses incurred by public schools, and individual states contributed approximately 30 percent of the expenses. By 1990, the percentages had evened out considerably with local districts and states contributing about 47 percent to public school expenses with the federal government contributing the balance. By the mid 1900s, most states began intervening and regulating local districts with consolidation. “In 1940 there were over 117,000 school districts in the country, but by 1990 there were just over 15,000 districts (Thattai, n.d., ¶ 6). By 2012, according to a report from the Pew Charitable Trusts, there were only 12,880 school districts in the United States. However, the Pew Report also notes that there can be great local resistance to school district consolidation, even if a state offers financial incentives for districts to merge, because small communities often see maintaining local schools as an important part of their identity.

Current Issues in High School Education

There have been many reports regarding the current issues faced by high schools, primarily the need for more rigorous content and more student support (Perkins-Gough, 2005). In 1983, the federal government published a report, A Nation at Risk, which indicated that the country's students were falling behind most industrialized countries and their test scores had been steadily declining. This led most states to focus on education reform that emphasized more frequent testing and more state-mandated curriculum requirements (Thattai, n.d.). From a student's point of view, one survey of 2003 and 2004 high school graduates found that only about 60 percent of them believed that their high school readied them sufficiently for the trials and challenges of college and/or work experience. Employers estimated that almost 40 percent of recent high school graduates did not have the appropriate skill-sets and knowledge necessary for entry-level jobs, and they estimated that about 45 percent of recent high school graduates were not prepared to advance beyond an entry-level position. Only 18 percent of the college instructors surveyed believed that most students entered college extremely well or very well prepared (Perkins-Gough, 2005). An ACT “report found that only 22 percent of the 1.2 million students who took the ACT in 2004 achieved scores that indicated they were ready for college-level work in biology, algebra, and English composition” (ACT, 2004, as cited in Perkins-Gough, 2005, ¶ 2).

International comparisons have also shown American high school students performing at levels far below students in other industrialized countries. The 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) found that American 15-year-olds scored below 27 other countries/education systems on mathematics, with only 9% of U.S. students performing at the highest level of proficiency and an average score of 481; by comparison, in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), the average score was 494 and 13 percent of students performed at the highest level of proficiency. In the school system scoring highest in mathematics, that in Shanghai, China, 55 percent of students performed at the highest level, and the average score was 580. American students also scored below many OECD countries in science and reading achievement.

There has been a movement to revamp high schools and change the curriculum, moving away from the traditional college preparation, vocational, general, and special education tracks to one in which all students are prepared to go on to college even if it is not in their plans for the future. The premise is that because the academic skills that are necessary for college are the same skills needed for the workplace. However, detractors feel that forcing all students into college preparation programs would waste the time of students who could be better served in an apprenticeship or vocational program. These detractors also point to rising college dropout rates as proof that this is probably already the case for many students (Viadero, 2001).

As it is, close to 70 percent of seniors graduating from high school go on to college shortly after graduating, but some research shows that almost half of those need to take at least one remedial course. The National Commission on Excellence in Education's 1983 report A Nation at Risk recommended raising high school course requirements. The commission recommended students take at least four courses of English; three courses of math, science, and social studies; and a year and a half of computer science. It also recommended that students planning to go to college should take two years of foreign languages. A Nation at Risk did have influence, as high school students began taking more core academic courses. One federal report stated that from 1982 to 1994, the percentage of students taking the recommended core courses went from 14 percent to more than 50 percent (Viadero, 2001).

Even with more high schools raising their core academic course requirements, many states have high failure rates on their high school exit exams. Additionally, even though 70 percent of high school students are enrolling in college upon graduation, the percentage of students who actually earn a bachelor's degree is about the same as it was in 1950. Also, the percentage of students graduating from high school has been dropping since 1993, although there is some discrepancy over the figure because more students are earning their high school credentials through alternative programs, such as home schooling and online high schools (Viadero, 2001).

Further Insights

State Level Changes

While there are still many states that need to work on high school reform, others have been actively implementing changes. Indiana had a strategy for bringing more rigor to their curriculum, aligning it with higher education and workplace expectations by bringing together business and college and university leaders to identify what skills students should know in order to be prepared for higher education or employment. The state developed more challenging classes in English, mathematics, science, and social studies and now administers end-of-course assessments to evaluate the content and relevance of information learned. School participation is voluntary, but the percentage of students pursuing the honors diploma rose more than 50 percent in a 10-year period, and the state rose from fortieth in the nation to tenth in the percentage of high school graduates enrolling in college. In 2005, Indiana's legislature approved a recommendation that the honors diploma become the default high school curriculum, and by 2011 the honors diploma will become an admissions requirement for all public, four-year colleges and universities in the state ("Raise High School Graduation Requirements," n.d.).

There has also been great advancements made in the number of states that supported the requirement that all students must finish a college and workplace preparation educational program. As of 2007, fifteen states had enacted college and workplace graduation requirements. These states have the college and workplace course requirements as the diploma option students are automatically enrolled in, and students may choose to opt out of the option with parental consent. However, Ohio will make the new curriculum mandatory for all students within four years. The state of Michigan researched what skills high school students needed in order to be a valuable competitor in the search for high-skilled career positions in today's workplace. The state also established what sorts of course requirements would be necessary in order to graduate, and these requirements were first implemented in 2006 for ninth grade students. Its updated curriculum requires four years of mathematics, which is one year more than most recommend ("Raise High School Graduation Requirements," n.d.).

In other states, the school districts are taking the lead in high school reform. A district in California has made a voluntary, university-designed curriculum mandatory. Although Massachusetts has a graduation requirement of passing a tenth grade exit exam, one district in the state established course requirements more in line with recommended standards by requiring more lab science courses. Illinois corrected its statewide course requisites in 2005, but since 1997 one school district has had even more rigorous graduation requirements in place for its students ( "Raise High School Graduation Requirements," n.d. ).

The Common Core State Standards

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS), a set of standards developed in 2010 by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers, are a state-level initiative meant to improve student achievement and create common standards for what students should be able to do, for each grade from kindergarten through high school. The CCSS was developed consultation with education researchers, parents, teachers, and school administrators, and adoption by states is voluntary; however, as of December 2013, forty-five states and the District of Columbia have adopted the CCSS. The CCSS is not a curriculum, and implementation of the standards is expected to proceed differently in different school systems. In addition, the process of implementing the CCSS is just getting underway, with the first assessments scheduled for 2014-2015 school year), so it is not yet possible to evaluate whether the CCSS has had an effect on high school achievement.

Career Clusters

In the late 1990s, the U.S. Department of Education introduced three programs to assist high schools and help change the education model that has been in use since the 1950s. The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Vocational and Adult Education developed 16 career clusters, which group different occupations into categories that are connected to certain subjects. The federal office acknowledged that using career clusters is not new for many schools, but it is the first time that the Department of Education has created clusters. While 16 career clusters is the standard from the federal government, individual states can decide which clusters to adopt or continue to develop and use. The theory behind career clusters is to allow students the leeway to explore many different career choices, instead of limiting them to one specific subject or career path.

The government also developed a Building Linkages initiative to give funding to schools to help them create and enhance programs that will aid in the career cluster initiative. Another part of this initiative is to offer high school certificates of ability to students who do not plan to attend college. The third program from the U.S. Department of Education was the development of the Commission on the High School Senior Year and intended to observe how school systems guide high school seniors because it appears that once students are accepted into college or have passed their graduation exams that they tend to show up without putting forth much effort to learn (Robertson, 2000).

According to the U.S. Department of Education (2000), some of the federal government's career clusters are:

• “Agriculture and Natural Resources - comprised of courses related to planning, managing, and performing agricultural production and horticulture and landscaping services, mining and extraction operations, and managing and conserving natural resources” (U.S. Department of Education, 2000, appendix A.b).

• “Business and Administration - comprised of courses related to planning, managing, and providing administrative support, information processing, accounting, and human resource management services and related management support services” (U.S. Department of Education, 2000, appendix A.f).

• Education and Training - comprised of courses related to planning, managing, and providing education and training services and related learning support services

• “Government and Public Administration - comprised of courses related to planning, managing, and providing government, legislative, administrative, and regulatory services and related general purpose government services” (U.S. Department of Education, 2000, appendix A.k).

• “Hospitality and Tourism - comprised of courses related to hospitality and tourism and planning, managing, and providing lodging, food, recreation, convention and tourism, and related planning and support services” (U.S. Department of Education, 2000, appendix A.e).

• “Human Services - comprised of courses related to planning, managing, and providing human services including social and related community services” (U.S. Department of Education, 2000, appendix A.g).

• “Law and Public Safety - comprised of courses related to planning, managing, and providing judicial, legal, and protective services” (U.S. Department of Education, 2000, appendix A.h).

• “Scientific Research and Engineering - comprised ofcourses related to planning, managing, and providing scientific research and professional and technical services” (U.S. Department of Education, 2000, appendix A.i).

• “Wholesale/Retail Sales and Services - comprised of courses related to planning, managing, and performing wholesaling and retailing services and related marketing and distribution support services including merchandise management and promotion” (U.S. Department of Education, 2000, appendix A.b).

No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

While high schools have historically been run by local school districts with some state oversight, the federal government is stepping in more with the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). In the beginning, focus was primarily on what was happening at the elementary and middle school level. That focus began to shift in 2004 when Congress began looking at requiring high schools to provide all students with four years of mathematics and English and three years of science and social studies, along with participation in the National Assessment of Educational Progress in the twelfth grade. These changes were proposed requirements of any high school receiving federal Perkins funds, which would affect about 85 percent of the country's school districts and come close to being a federally mandated high school curriculum. However, the general consensus was that it was not appropriate to use the Perkins Act to implement these kinds of changes, and the Perkins Act was reauthorized without those stipulations (Kusler, 2004). Since the implementation of the NCLB and the mandated changes that have come about in the public school system, school districts are feeling more pressure to raise standards and better align their high school curricula with postsecondary expectations so that students entering college will be less likely to have to take remedial classes. However, as many states have had difficulty meeting NCLB standards, in 2011 President Barak Obama announced that states could apply for waivers for some of the NCLB standards, if they would adopt other reforms, including adopting performance-based standards for teacher evaluation. As of December 2013, 45 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have applied for NCLB waivers, with three applications pending and the remainder granted.

Discussion

Eliminating the Tracking System

Since the traditional high school model separates students into college preparation, vocational, and general education tracks, many students may be prevented from taking the courses they need to be able to successfully complete college-level work. By eliminating the traditional track system, all students would have the opportunity to take college-preparatory classes; however, many do not for a variety of reasons. One reason is because guidance counselors have too many students and do not have the time to spend guiding each student on the right path. The National Center for Education Statistics estimates the ratio of students to guidance counselors is almost 500 to 1. Another reason many students do not take the courses they need to succeed in college is because they just take the lowest-level courses they need to graduate. High school exit exams can also be deceiving for students because they tend to assess students based on skills they should have gained in the ninth or tenth grade. Therefore, when students pass the exams, they often assume that they are already equipped with the knowledge they need in order to succeed in college and are in for an unpleasant surprise when they take college placement exams and end up placing into remedial classes.

Advanced Placement

High schools have also changed with the advent of Advanced Placement courses and dual enrollment programs created in partnership with local colleges and universities (Viadero, 2001). According to the College Board, more than 18,000 schools offer AP courses and almost one-third (32.4%) of American public school students took at least one AP exam during high school; globally, in 2012, over two million students took 3.7 million AP exams. However, although more high school students are taking Advanced Placement exams than have in the past, but the percentage of those who pass the tests has dropped: in 2000, 64.3 percent of the 405,475 graduating seniors who took Advanced Placement exams earned scores of 3 or higher compared with 62.1 percent of the 609,807 seniors who took the exams in 2005” (Farrell, 2006, ¶ 1-3).

Elective Courses

With the increase of core academic subjects being added to the curricula in many states comes concern about electives. This concern has been voiced since the late 1980s when A Nation at Risk called for more academic core subjects. The passage of the NCLB and tougher state and federal requirements have forced schools and districts to devote more time to core academic subjects. Although most of the federally mandated testing occurs in elementary and middle school, students are still tested at least once during their high school years as well as whatever state-mandated testing occurs. With tougher high school graduation requirements in place, it can be very difficult for schools to make time for electives. It is difficult to determine the state of electives in the nation because little research has been completed on the subject. In addition, what one state or school district may consider a graduation requirement another district may consider it an elective (Cavanagh, 2006). However, one report stated that school districts have said they have cut back on optional courses to give more time to reading and mathematics to meet federal testing mandates (Education Week, 2006, as cited in Cavanagh, 2006).

One way districts are keeping electives available to students is by turning the classes from credit-bearing courses to extracurricular activities held either before or after the regular school day. Detractors of this practice say that moving classes to outside the regular school day can discourage poor students and preclude those who have transportation difficulties from participating. Supporters feel that the change produces a stronger commitment from students because of the extra time required to participate in the course (Cavanagh, 2006).

More than 20 years after A Nation at Risk recommended increasing core academic subjects for high school students, a 2004 research report from Achieve, Inc. stated that many students in high school still do not have the skills they need to succeed in either college or the workplace. The report found that only five states required students to complete four mathematics courses to graduate and only six states required four years of English. The report's updated recommendations were:

• That all students should be required to take a common college and workplace preparatory curriculum in mathematics and English,

• That schools should pay particular attention to course content and not just course titles,

• That high schools work with colleges and professionals in the workplace to align high-school standards for student success,

• That high schools provide students with clear guidance on the courses they need to take, and

• That schools encourage students to take classes beyond those that are required ("Differences in High School Graduation Requirements," 2005).

While change has been occurring, most high schools still have a long way to go to meet most students' college and workplace needs.

Terms & Concepts

Advanced Placement: Advanced Placement courses are college-level classes offered in high school. High school students may take Advanced Placement exams, and qualifying scores on such exams may result in college credits being granted at the discretion of the individual college or university.

Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act: The Carl D, Perkins Act was first authorized in 1984 to increase the quality of technical education in the United States. It has since been reauthorized in 1998 and again in 2006 with the new name of Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2006.

Dual Enrollment: Dual enrollment is an alliance between a high school and college or university where high school students take classes for credits that can be used toward their high school diploma while earning college credits simultaneously.

High School Exit Exams: High school exit exams are tests that students are required to pass in order to graduate from high school and receive a diploma.

National Assessment of Educational Progress: The National Assessment of Educational Progress was developed in 1963 as the primary means to monitor the development of education and is the one national and continuous assessment of student knowledge in a wide variety of subjects.

No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB): The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is the latest reauthorization and a major overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the major federal law regarding K-12 education.

Placement Exams: Placement exams are assessments generally given to incoming college freshmen to help determine which classes should be taken during their first semester or quarter of college. Exams are usually given in mathematics, English, and reading comprehension.

Bibliography

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Suggested Reading

Belting, P. (2007). The Modern High School Curriculum. Oakhurst, CA: Nelson Press.

Campbell, C. (2006). The Comprehensive Public High School: Historical Perspectives. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Stone, R. (2001). Best Practices for High School Classrooms: What Award-Winning Secondary Teachers Do. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Zmuda, A. & Tomaino, M. (2001). Aligning High School Curriculum, Standards, and Assessment-A Creative Teaching Guide. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.