9-12

Students who took Advanced Placement (AP) courses and passed the exams tended to have a higher probability of college graduation compared to students not participating in AP even after controlling for student’s 8th grade mathematics test score, free and reduced price lunch status, average test scores, and percent economically disadvantaged students in the student’s school. The percent of a school’s students who took and passed AP is the best AP-related predictor of the probability of students from that school to graduate from college.

This issue brief from the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) discusses the role that career and technical education (CTE) programs have in helping students successfully transition from secondary to postsecondary education. The authors begin by noting the statistics on students who make the transition from high school to college and those who actually complete a postsecondary degree.

In this report from Jobs for the Future, the authors discuss examples of states that developed policies and strategies to support schools integrating high school and postsecondary education. The report looks at case studies from four states--Ohio and Utah that implemented fiscal policies, and Georgia and Texas that focused on alignment issues across high school and college--and provides lessons for educators and policymakers looking to support and sustain early college high schools in their states.

This brief from Jobs for the Future provides an overview of Early College High School (ECHS) models, and the state policies that support this educational model. The authors describe why these are a beneficial yet underutilized resource and provide recommendations for state legislation and collaboration that will help to increase access to ECHS and maximize the benefits and rewards to students who choose to attend them.

This study from MDRC uses a large-scale, multisite, experimental design to determine the effects of Career Academies on a range of student educational, developmental, and work-related outcomes, including student achievement and student engagement. This report provides information on the implementation of Career Academies.

This WestEd case study of five schools looks at successes in improving graduation and college acceptance rates. The schools were also profiled in a 2004 report, and each school has strengthened its courses in both rigor and number offered. The authors highlight five lessons from each of the schools including: helping students see college as an attainable goal; strengthening academic programs; ensuring a coherent curriculum from middle grades through high school; providing extra support during students’ critical freshmen year; and drawing out-of-school youth back into the classroom.

This report from the American Youth Policy Forum and the Pathways to College Network describes comprehensive reform models designed to increase college access. The authors look at the predictors of college-going behavior as addressed within the school reform movement, determine promising practices from existing reform initiatives, and make recommendations for the future.

In this report, the author looks at the eight federal legislative recommendations provided by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) for high school reform identified in their field guide, Breaking Ranks II. The recommendations include: (1) increasing academic rigor, (2) personalized instruction, (3) targeted strategies to support low-performing students, (4) improving reading and writing skills, (5) assessment, (6) high-quality school leaders, (7) highly qualified teachers, and (8) high schools identified as in need of improvement.

This article describes the history of the 9th-grade bulge problem and discusses promising reforms.

This article discusses the nation's declining graduation rate and the increasing percentage of students who are stuck in the 9th-grade bottleneck and fail to progress into 10th grade on time. The resource offers suggestions for reducing the 9th-grade bulge including increasing both visibility of the problem and support services.