Raising the Bar and Equity? Effects of State High School Graduation Requirements and Accountability Policies on Students' Mathematics Course Taking

In response to the national push to raise academic performance of all students, most states have adopted policies designed to raise academic standards, monitor progress toward those standards, and hold schools and students responsible for attaining them. Given the complex nature of the educational process, these policies are likely to have mixed effects on both general levels of attainment and stratification based on race or ethnicity and social class. Using nationally representative longitudinal data and hierarchical linear modeling, this article explored the association between students' mathematics course work and states' high school graduation requirements and assessment or accountability policies. We found that students in states with more graduation requirements tended to enroll in higher level mathematics courses as freshmen and persist to take more advanced level courses. Similar trends were also found for students in states that link test performance to consequences for schools. Extensive testing, however, had little effect on course taking except to increase differences based on socio-economic status. In contrast, differences between racial or ethnic groups tended to be smaller in states where test performance was linked to consequences for students.