Early Math Coursework and College Readiness: Evidence from Targeted Middle School Math Acceleration

Dougherty, Shaun M.; Goodman, Joshua; Hill, Darryl; Litke, Erica; Page, Lindsay C.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2662160

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…The HSGPA was a significant predictor of postsecondary success in models that were created to investigate the data that did not include immediate college enrollment or college persistence. These findings substantiate previous research that indicates that academic preparation as represented by cumulative grade point average was positively related to college graduation [20][21][22][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62]. Counter to the findings of DesJardins et al but in keeping with more recent findings of Pike et al, the impact of high school performance stays relatively constant for all benchmarks of postsecondary success [20,23].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…In Arkansas and Texas, taking Algebra II did not help students to become more college and career ready by the end of high school. A study of the policy in North Carolina found that students who took 8th grade algebra were more likely to repeat the course and they performed less well in subsequent math courses [51]. These results are similar to the results found in an analysis of the California program to provide algebra for all students [52].…”

Section: College and Career Readinesssupporting

confidence: 65%

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From High School Access to Postsecondary Success: An Exploratory Study of the Impact of High-Rigor Coursework

Morgan

Zakhem

Cooper³

2018

Education Sciences

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Educators and policymakers are keenly aware of the need to prepare students to compete in an increasingly global society. It is widely accepted that a high school diploma is not sufficient and that secondary schools have a responsibility to prepare students to be college and career ready. This study examined participation in a rigorous secondary curriculum and the corresponding outcomes related to college enrollment, persistence, and graduation. Focusing on the involvement of students in high-rigor courses that provide a stronger pathway to college, we seek to understand further the indicators that lead to postsecondary success. The sample comprises 1464 students who graduated from high school between 2009 and 2014. The primary analytic technique was binary logistic regression. The results from this study confirmed that a positive relationship exists between high-rigor courses and college success. This relationship was evident even after controlling for relevant student demographics including gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The academic benefits of the high-rigor course participation are discussed.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: College and Career Readinesssupporting

confidence: 65%

From High School Access to Postsecondary Success: An Exploratory Study of the Impact of High-Rigor Coursework

Morgan

Zakhem

Cooper³

2018

Education Sciences

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“…Our finding on verbal skills and college enrollment adds to a large literature that studies the impact of math and verbal skills on wages and subject specific schooling curriculum on wages, which has primarily focused on the importance of math (Levine and Zimmerman, 1995;Rose and Betts, 2004;Joensen and Nielsen, 2009;Altonji et al, 2012;Dougherty et al, 2015). One consequence of our result is that if verbal skills have a predominant effect on college enrollment, then caution needs to be exercised when interpreting regressions of skills on labor market outcomes that also control for the endogenous variable education (Betts, 1995;Neal and Johnson, 1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 54%

“…These results are consistent with our findings for the ASVAB subject tests, where the return to the verbal skills goes from positive and statistically significant to statistically insignificant once the control for schooling level is added. To conclude, the fact that controlling for schooling largely undermines the role of verbal skills on wages may partially explain why the economics literature (Levine and Zimmerman, 1995;Joensen and Nielsen, 2009;Cortes et al, 2015;Dougherty et al, 2015) and policymakers (e.g. the "Algebra-for-All" movement, Loveless (2008)) have mainly prioritized their attention to math skills over verbal skills (Long et al, 2012).…”

Section: Undermining the Returns To Verbal Skills: The Role Of Intermediate Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Path to College Education: The Role of Math and Verbal Skills

Aucejo

James

2021

Journal of Political Economy

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This paper studies the formation of math and verbal skills during compulsory education and their impact on adult outcomes. We introduce a novel method to estimate dynamic, nested CES production functions. Using a rich panel database that follows a cohort of students in England from elementary school to university, we find that the production functions of math and verbal skills are inherently different, where cross-effects are only present in the production of math skills. Results on long-term outcomes indicate that verbal skills play a substantially greater role in explaining university enrollment than math skills. This finding, combined with the large female advantage in verbal skills, has key implications for gender gaps in college enrollment and field of study. Finally, we show that students stuck in low quality schools have lower skill levels at the end of compulsory education compared to students attending high quality schools, with these skill deficits leading to a 30 percentage point gap in college enrollment among these students. Simulation results show that about 15% of this gap is due to differences in skill levels * We thank

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“…Students with lower initial skills might not be able to deal with the increased pace of learning (Cuhna and Heckman, 2007); or, it might be the case that students experience difficulties in absorbing the additional knowledge that they are exposed to in earlier grades (Clotfelter et al, 2015;Dougherty et al, 2015). Also, while students may realize these benefits each year, prior research on other educational interventions suggests that 5 About 475 additional hours allocated across grades five to nine (2.5 hours per week × 38 school weeks × 5 grades), or 41 percent of the instruction time (1,150 hours) allocated on average to each of these grades pre-reform.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Causal Effects of an Intensified Curriculum on Cognitive Skills: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Andrietti

2016

SSRN Journal

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This paper exploits a unique universal educational policy -implemented in most German states between 2001 and 2008 -that compressed the academic-track high school curriculum into a (oneyear) shorter time span, thereby increasing time of instruction and share of curriculum taught per grade. Using 2000-2012 PISA data and a quasi-experimental approach, I estimate the impacts of this intensified curriculum on cognitive skills. I find robust evidence that the reform improved, on average, the reading, mathematical, and scientific literacy skills acquired by academic-track ninthgraders upon treatment. However, I also provide evidence that the reform widened the gap in student performance with respect to parental migration background and student ability. Finally, although the reform did not affect, on average, high school grade retention, I find that the latter increased for students with parental migration background. Taken together, these findings suggest that moving to a compressed high-school curriculum did not compromise and benefited, on average, students' cognitive skills. However, they also raise equity concerns that policy-makers should be aware of.

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Early Math Coursework and College Readiness: Evidence from Targeted Middle School Math Acceleration

Cited by 3 publications

References 63 publications

From High School Access to Postsecondary Success: An Exploratory Study of the Impact of High-Rigor Coursework

From High School Access to Postsecondary Success: An Exploratory Study of the Impact of High-Rigor Coursework

The Path to College Education: The Role of Math and Verbal Skills

The Causal Effects of an Intensified Curriculum on Cognitive Skills: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

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