Improving course rigor important to state

Making high school courses harder continues to be a focus of many education policy initiatives. What may sound burdensome to students is actually designed to prepare them for college and workforce success. Courses that in the past were considered accelerated or for gifted and talented are now taken by the majority of students in the world’s highest-performing nations. For Minnesota, increased emphasis on rigor promises to improve the ability of students — and the state — to compete in a global economy.

While increasing course rigor alone won’t fix all our education problems, it does make a significant impact. Here are some examples from recent U.S. Department of Education studies:

Students who complete Algebra II in high school more than double their chances of earning a four-year degree. This is true regardless of student ethnicity, family income or parents’ education levels. The highest level of math taken in high school is the most powerful predictor of bachelor’s degree attainment.
Of students who completed the highest level curriculum of academic intensity in high school measured by one study, 95 percent earned a bachelor’s degree and 41 percent went on to complete graduate level degrees.
Academic rigor of students’ high school curricula is strongly associated with college GPA and rates of staying in college and graduating.
Rigorous preparation in high school narrows the achievement gap between students whose parents went to college and those who didn’t in terms of completing and doing well in college. Taking challenging math courses such as Algebra II in high school reduces by half the college achievement gap between African American and Latino students and their white peers.

New standards will require students to take biology and chemistry or physics

So how is “rigor” defined? Basically, it means coursework that makes students ready for entry-level courses in postsecondary education and for entering the workforce. These skills include critical thinking, problem solving, reading and writing. They align with new Minnesota high school graduation standards for students graduating in 2010 that require them to take:

Four years of English
Algebra II, Geometry and Statistics & Probability
Biology and Chemistry or Physics

But increasing course rigor works best when other measures are in place. In the May 2007 Minnesota Journal article, “Students decide if they attend school and learn,” Kim Farris-Berg points out that raising standards of proficiency and achievement aren’t meaningful if students don’t meet them. “Minnesota’s policy-making ought to at least consider how customization, in addition to high standards, might help us accomplish our goals of helping every child learn and achieve,” she writes.

One of the education initiatives of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation advocates for the “new three Rs” — identified by education experts as the key ingredients of an effective education:

Rigor: all students need the chance to succeed at challenging classes, such as algebra, writing, and chemistry
Relevance: courses and projects must spark student interest and relate clearly to their lives in today’s rapidly changing world
Relationships: all students need adult mentors who know them, look out for them, and push them to achieve

Increasing course rigor — along with appealing to students’ interests and motivations and providing guidance and encouragement — does pay off. It is important for our state’s future since demographic data shows that we will have inadequate numbers of college-educated people to meet state job needs. To preserve the health of the state’s economy, we need to take new steps to increase the number of students moving into and graduating from college. Greater course rigor is part of the solution.

Read the Minnesota Private College Research Foundation report Improving Outcomes with Incentives for Rigorous Coursework, PDF (120 KB).