Higher Standards Don't Lead Every Student to Success

The National Center for Educational Accountability, in a February 2006 brief titled "Orange Juice or Orange Drink? Ensuring that 'Advanced Courses' Live Up to Their Labels," noted that several states are attempting to raise high school standards.

Since the February 2005 National Education Summit on High Schools, the center said, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Iowa and Louisiana have stiffened course requirements for students to get a diploma. Twelve states have business-sponsored State Scholars programs to encourage students to take college-preparatory courses. All 50 states and the District of Columbia offer incentives for students to take Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or dual enrollment courses in cooperation with local colleges, the center said.

But the center's analysis of student progress in Texas found a failure to prepare low-income and minority students adequately for state tests in some demanding subjects.

According to the Texas Education Agency, 58 percent of low-income students, 67 percent of African American students and 59 percent of Hispanic students in Texas who received course credit for algebra 1 in 1999 failed a corresponding state test. The percentages for non-low-income and white students were 39 and 35 percent, respectively.

Among low-income Texas students in the graduating class of 2002 who took AP exams, the center said, fewer than one in four passed. The ratio was roughly the same for African American and Hispanic students.

Among white and non-low-income students in Texas who took AP exams, about 57 percent passed.