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Journal Issue: America's High Schools Volume 19 Number 1 Spring 2009

U.S. High School Curriculum: Three Phases of Contemporary Research and Reform
Authors: Valerie E. Lee Douglas D. Ready

Endnotes

  1. Charles E. Bidwell and John D. Kasarda, "Conceptualizing and Measuring the Effects of School and Schooling," American Journal of Education 88 (1980): 401–30; and Stephen W. Raudenbush and Anthony S. Bryk, Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2002).
  2. National Education Association, Report of the Committee on Secondary School Studies (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1893).
  3. National Education Association, Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education: A Report of the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1918).
  4. Leonard P. Ayres, Laggards in Our Schools: A Study of Retardation and Elimination in City School Systems (New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1909); and John F. Bobbitt, How to Make a Curriculum (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1924).
  5. Edward L. Thorndike, "The Opportunity of the High Schools," The Bookman, October 1906: p. 180.
  6. David L. Angus and Jeffrey E. Mirel, The Failed Promise of the American High School, 1890–1995 (Teachers College Press, 1999); Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education (New York: Knopf, 1961); Herbert M. Kliebard, The Struggle for the American Curriculum 1893–1958 (New York: Routledge, 1995); Jeannie Oakes, Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality (Yale University Press, 1985); and Arthur G. Powell, Eleanor Farrar, and David K. Cohen, The Shopping Mall High School: Winners and Losers in the Educational Market Place (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985).
  7. Powell, Farrar, and Cohen, The Shopping Mall High School (see note 6), p. 260.
  8. Donald R. Moore and Suzanne Davenport, The New Improved Sorting Machine (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin–Madison, School of Education, National Center on Effective Secondary Schools, 1988).
  9. Phillip A. Cusick, The Egalitarian Ideal and the American High School: Studies of Three Schools (New York: Longman, 1983).
  10. Oakes, Keeping Track (see note 6); Powell, Farrar, and Cohen, The Shopping Mall High School (see note 6); and Susan Yonezawa, Amy S. Wells, and Irene Serna, "Choosing Tracks: ‘Freedom of Choice' in Detracking Schools," American Educational Research Journal 39, no. 1 (2002): 37–67.
  11. Samuel Lucas, Tracking Inequality (Teachers College Press, 1999), p. 16.
  12. Cusick, The Egalitarian Ideal (see note 9).
  13. Angus and Mirel, The Failed Promise (see note 6).
  14. Aage B. Sorensen, "Organizational Differentiation of Students and Educational Opportunity," Sociology of Education 43, no. 4 (1970): 355–76.
  15. National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983).
  16. Ibid., p. 7.
  17. Ibid., p. 18.
  18. Angus and Mirel, The Failed Promise (see note 6).
  19. Susan Fuhrman, William H. Clune, and Richard F. Elmore, "Research on Education Reform: Lessons on the Implementation of Policy," Teachers College Record 90, no. 2 (1988): 237–57.
  20. Allen Odden, Financing Education in an Era of Excellence: National and MCREL State Trends (Kansas City, Mo.: Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory, 1987).
  21. William H. Clune, The Implementation and Effects of High School Graduation Requirements: First Steps toward Curricular Reform (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University, Center for Policy Research in Education [CPRE], CPRE Research Report Series RR-011, 1989); William H. Clune and Paula A. White, "Education Reform in the Trenches: Increased Academic Course Taking in High Schools with Lower Achieving Students in States with Higher Graduation Requirements," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 14, no. 1 (1992): 2–20.
  22. Angus and Mirel, The Failed Promise (see note 6).
  23. Fuhrman, Clune, and Elmore, "Research on Education Reform" (see note 19).
  24. Clune, The Implementation and Effects (see note 21); William A. Firestone, Susan H. Fuhrman, and Michael W. Kirst, The Progress of Reform: An Appraisal of State Education Initiatives (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University, Center for Policy Research in Education [CPRE]; CPRE Research Report Series RR-014, 1989).
  25. Tom Loveless, The Tracking Wars: State Reform Meets School Policy (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 1999).
  26. National Center for Education Statistics, "The 1990 High School Transcript Study Tabulations: Comparative Data on Credits Earned and Demographics for 1990, 1987, and 1982 High School Graduates" (Washington: NCES, 1993).
  27. James McPartland and Barbara Schneider, "Opportunities to Learn and Student Diversity: Prospects and Pitfalls of a Common Core Curriculum," Sociology of Education Extra Issue (1996): 66–81.
  28. Fuhrman, Clune, and Elmore, "Research on Education Reform" (see note 19).
  29. Clune, The Implementation and Effects (see note 21).
  30. Ibid., p. 15.
  31. Marshall S. Smith and Jennifer O'Day, "Systemic School Reform," in The Politics of Curriculum and Testing: The 1990 Yearbook of the Politics of Education Association, edited by Susan H. Fuhrman and Betty Malen (London: Falmer, 1991), pp. 233–67.
  32. Firestone, Fuhrman, and Kirst, The Progress of Reform (see note 24).
  33. Ibid.; Fuhrman, Clune, and Elmore, "Research on Education Reform" (see note 19); Smith and O'Day, "Systemic School Reform" (see note 31).
  34. David K. Cohen, "Teaching Practice: Plus Que Ça Change...," in Contributing to Educational Change: Perspectives on Research and Practice, edited by Phillip W. Jackson (Berkeley, Calif.: McCutchan Publishing Corporation, 1988), pp. 27–84; Daniel C. Lortie, Schoolteacher: A Sociological Study (University of Chicago Press, 1975); David Tyack and Larry Cuban, Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform (Harvard University Press, 1995).
  35. Cohen, "Teaching Practice" (see note 34); Lortie, Schoolteacher (see note 34).
  36. U.S. Department of Education, Mathematics Equals Opportunity (Washington: Department of Education, 1997).
  37. Amy S. Wells and Robert L. Crain, Stepping over the Color Line: African-American Students in White Suburban Schools (Yale University Press, 1997); Amy S. Wells and Jeannie Oakes, "Potential Pitfalls of Systemic Reform: Early Lessons from Detracking Research," Sociology of Education Extra Issue (1996):135–43.
  38. Angus and Mirel, The Failed Promise (see note 6).
  39. Earnest L. Boyer, High School: A Report on Secondary Education in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1983); Cusick, The Egalitarian Ideal (see note 9); John L. Goodlad, A Place Called School (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984); Gerald Grant, The World We Created at Hamilton High (Harvard University Press, 1988); Powell, Farrar, and Cohen, The Shopping Mall High School (see note 6); Oakes, Keeping Track (see note 6); Michael W. Sedlak and others, Selling Students Short: Classroom Bargains and Academic Reform in the American High School (Teachers College Press, 1986); Theodore R. Sizer, Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984).
  40. Grant, The World We Created (see note 39); Powell, Farrar, and Cohen, The Shopping Mall High School (see note 6); Oakes, Keeping Track (see note 6); Yonezawa, Wells, and Serna, "Choosing Tracks" (see note 10).
  41. Karl L. Alexander and Martha A. Cook, "Curricula and Coursework: A Surprise Ending to a Familiar Story," American Sociological Review 47 (1982): 626–40; Karl L. Alexander and Edward L. McDill, "Selection and Allocation within Schools: Some Causes and Consequences of Curriculum Placement," American Sociological Review 41 (1976): 963–80; Barbara Heyns, "Social Selection and Stratification in Schools," American Journal of Sociology 79 (1974): 1434–51; Robert M. Hauser, William H. Sewell, and Duane Alwin, "High School Effects on Achievement," in Schooling, and Achievement in American Society, edited by Sewell, Hauser, and Featherman (New York: Academic Press, 1976), pp. 309–41.
  42. Powell, Farrar, and Cohen, The Shopping Mall High School (see note 6).
  43. Sedlak and others, Selling Students Short (see note 39).
  44. Cusick, The Egalitarian Ideal (see note 9); Powell, Farrar, and Cohen, The Shopping Mall High School (see note 6); Sedlak and others, Selling Students Short (see note 39).
  45. Sizer, Horace's Compromise (see note 39), p. 156.
  46. Goodlad, A Place Called School (see note 39), p. 297.
  47. Mortimer J. Adler, The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto (New York: Collier Books, 1982).
  48. Anthony S. Bryk, Valerie E. Lee, and Peter B. Holland, Catholic Schools and the Common Good (Harvard University Press, 1993); James S. Coleman, Thomas Hoffer, and Sally Kilgore, High School Achievement: Public and Private Schools Compared (New York: Basic Books, 1982); Adam Gamoran, "The Variable Effects of High School Tracking," American Sociological Review 57 (1992): 812–28; Valerie E. Lee and Anthony S. Bryk, "A Multilevel Model of the Social Distribution of High School Achievement," Sociology of Education 61 (1988): 78–94; Valerie E. Lee and Anthony S. Bryk, "Curriculum Tracking as Mediating the Social Distribution of High School Achievement," Sociology of Education 62 (1989): 172–92.
  49. Bryk, Lee, and Holland, Catholic Schools and the Common Good (see note 48); Gamoran, "The Variable Effects" (see note 48); Lee and Bryk, "Curriculum Tracking" (see note 48).
  50. Adam Gamoran, "The Stratification of High School Learning Opportunities," Sociology of Education 60 (1987): 135–55; Adam Gamoran and Robert D. Mare, "Secondary School Tracking and Educational Inequality: Compensation, Reinforcement, or Neutrality?" American Journal of Sociology 94, no. 5 (1989): 1146–83; Valerie E. Lee and others, High School Curriculum Structure: Effects on Course-Taking and Achievement in Mathematics for High School Graduates. An Examination of Data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (Washington: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Development, National Center for Education Statistics, Working Paper No. 98-09, 1998); Valerie E. Lee and Julia B. Smith, "Effects of High School Restructuring and Size on Gains in Achievement and Engagement for Early Secondary School Students," Sociology of Education 68, no. 4 (1995): 241–70; Valerie E. Lee, Robert G. Croninger, and Julia B. Smith, "Course-Taking, Equity, and Mathematics Learning: Testing the Constrained Curriculum Hypothesis in U.S. Secondary Schools," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 19, no. 2 (1997): 99–121; Valerie E. Lee, Julia B. Smith, and Robert G. Croninger, "How High School Organization Influences the Equitable Distribution of Learning in Mathematics and Science," Sociology of Education 70, no. 2 (1997): 128–50.
  51. Karl L. Alexander and Aaron M. Pallas, "Curriculum Reform and School Performance: An Evaluation of the ‘New Basics,' " American Journal of Education 92 (1984): 391–420; Adam Gamoran and Eileen C. Hannigan, "Algebra for Everyone? Benefits of College-Preparatory Mathematics for Students with Diverse Abilities in Early Secondary School," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 22, no. 3 (2000): 241–54; Lee and others, High School Curriculum Structure (see note 50); Gary Natriello, Aaron M. Pallas, and Karl Alexander, "On the Right Track? Curriculum and Academic Achievement," Sociology of Education 62 (1989): 109–18. However, there is some evidence that the positive academic benefits of reducing curricular differentiation for low-achieving students is counterbalanced by potentially harmful effects for high- achieving students; see Laura M. Argys, Daniel I. Rees, and Dominic J. Brewer, "Detracking America's Schools: Equity at Zero Cost?" Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 15, no. 4 (1996): 623–45. Recent qualitative research in "detracked" high schools provides several potential explanations for this finding. Foremost is the fact that teachers are unaccustomed to managing heterogeneous classes, and when required to do so tend to target instruction at average-ability students, which may stretch low-achieving students intellectually, but leaves higher-achieving students unchallenged; see James E. Rosenbaum, "If Tracking Is Bad, Is Detracking Better?" American Educator 23, no. 4 (1999): 24–29, 47. We return to this important issue in our discussion of the Chicago curriculum reforms.
  52. Many of these studies employed data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics, particularly High School and Beyond (HS&B), and the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS: 88).
  53. Elizabeth DeBray, "A Comprehensive High School and a Shift in New York State Policy: A Study of Early Implementation," The High School Journal 89, no. 1 (2005): 18–45; John W. Sipple, Kieran Killeen, and David H. Monk, "Adoption and Adaptation: School District Responses to State Imposed Learning and Graduation Requirements," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 26, no. 2 (2004): 143–68.
  54. Achieve, Inc., Benefits of a High School Core Curriculum for Students in Urban High Schools (www.act.org/research/policymakers/pdf/core_curriculum.pdf [February 15, 2008]).
  55. The Chicago Public Schools make up the third-largest school district in the country, with a school population that is 50 percent African American, 38 percent Latino, 9 percent white, and 3 percent Asian. More than half of all Chicago students qualified for meal subsidies.
  56. Members of the research team are also engaged in another series of studies on the efficacy of the double-dose reform element in ninth-grade mathematics and on student outcomes of the increase in AP course offerings and enrollment in Chicago. Results of those studies are not yet available.
  57. Elaine Allensworth and others, College Preparatory Curriculum for All in Chicago High Schools: Consequences of Ninth-Grade Course Taking on Academic Outcomes (Chicago: University of Chicago, Consortium on Chicago School Research, 2008).
  58. Indeed, a central criticism of the Phase II Catholic-public sector comparisons is that they may have inadequately accounted for pre-existing differences in the types of students who attend Catholic and public schools. However, none of these critiques focused specifically on selection bias in terms of student course-taking. See Arthur S. Goldberger and Glen G. Cain, "The Causal Analysis of Cognitive Outcomes in the Coleman, Hoffer and Kilgore Report," Sociology of Education 55, April/July (1982): 103–22; Richard J. Murnane, Stuart Newstead, and Randall J. Olsen, "Comparing Public and Private Schools: The Puzzling Role of Selectivity Bias," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics 3, no. 1 (1985): 23–35; Jay Noell, "Public and Catholic Schools: A Reanalysis of Public and Private Schools," Sociology of Education 55, April/July (1982): 123–32.
  59. Readers should note that both authors of this article have been directly involved in both the research and policy process related to the Chicago Public School curriculum reforms in the 1980s through the present. Thus, our perspective on the nature of these research findings and efficacy of the reform initiatives may have been influenced by this involvement.
  60. Our support of the constrained academic curriculum that grew out of our own research on this topic has been shaken by the early evaluations of Chicago's "College Prep for All" curriculum. However, as the Chicago research team digs deeper into its evaluation, it may unearth other explanations for the disappointing initial results. Although it is unusual in a review such as this to include personal reflections, it is also difficult to report such findings as though the research were done by someone else. When those who are summarizing research findings are also those who have had a hand in producing some of those findings, it would be disingenuous to suggest a complete objectivity that may not apply.