2.1: Rigorous Curriculum

Increase the proportion of high school students taking a rigorous curriculum.

Other Information:

The Department will encourage increased access to, and participation in, AP or IB classes by low-income and other disadvantaged students. To offer challenging courses, schools must have qualified teachers to teach them. The Department will promote efforts to increase the number of teachers who have the academic content knowledge needed to teach advanced classes, particularly in schools where access to rigorous course work is limited. Strategy 1. Increase access to AP courses nationwide. Approximately 44 percent of America’s public high schools offered no AP or IB courses during the 2003–04 school year, according to National Center for Education Statistics data. Course offerings in schools that do offer AP are often quite limited. The Department will continue to support efforts to make more AP courses, including online courses, available to students who now have no or limited access. Furthermore, because low-income and minority students are underrepresented in AP classrooms, the Department will target AP Incentive (API) grants to high-poverty high schools. The Department will also work with states to promote greater awareness and use of federal aid for AP exam fees by low-income and minority families. And the Department will identify and disseminate information on promising strategies and practices for expanding the successful participation of low-income and minority students in AP courses. Strategy 2. Increase the number of teachers qualified to teach AP and IB classes. To expand access to advanced course work for low-income and other disadvantaged students, the Department will promote efforts to increase the number of teachers qualified to teach AP and IB classes in high-need schools. Working with Congress, the Department will expand support for API grants to provide assistance to SEAs and LEAs to prepare, over the next five years, an additional 70,000 teachers to deliver instruction in AP and IB courses. Strategy 3. Increase the number of students who complete the State Scholars Initiative curriculum. The Department’s State Scholars Initiative has helped to create business-education partnerships in 22 states that are now working with students in middle and high schools, encouraging them to excel academically and complete rigorous course work. The Department will disseminate information on promising practices implemented by the current partnerships and promote the development of new partnerships in the remaining states. Strategy 4. Identify and disseminate information on states that have increased their standards for graduation or that have rigorous high school end-of-course exams. The Department will identify and disseminate information on states that have increased their standards for graduation. States that have raised the rigor of their graduation standards, better aligning them with the expectations of postsecondary education and employers, are seeing promising results in student achievement. Through the Department’s Comprehensive Centers program and additional programs and initiatives, other states will be encouraged to pursue these reforms. Strategy 5. Support states’ implementation of additional high school assessments in mathematics and reading/language arts. The Department will work with Congress during the reauthorization of NCLB to require states to implement two additional high school assessments in reading/language arts and mathematics. These new assessments are needed to inform strategies to meet the needs of at-risk high school students and strengthen school accountability at the secondary level. Strategy 6. Leverage the Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG) program, rewarding high school students who increase the rigor of their studies. We will continue to implement, support and evaluate the ACG program as an incentive for students to complete rigorous high school programs and enroll in postsecondary programs. Strategy 7. Collect and analyze data on AP access and success at local levels. Reliable data on student participation and success in AP programs are readily available only at the national and state levels. To better understand local barriers to AP access and success, and promising strategies for overcoming them, the Department will collect and examine district- and school-level data on AP access and success. Strategy 8. Assist states in their implementation of the Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2006. The Department will work with SEAs and LEAs to provide continuing federal support for rigorous Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs that prepare students for today’s competitive workforce. The Department will enforce state and local accountability authorized by the Act and ensure that CTE students reap the benefits of rigorous curricula.

Stakeholder(s):

• High School Students

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

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