On the Right Track? Curriculum and Academic Achievement

In an earlier study (Alexander, Natriello, and Pallas 1985), we compared the gains in academic achievement of high school graduates against those of dropouts over a two-year period. Baseline data were procured during the sophomore year, when all were still in school. Two years later, these same youngsters were retested. About 14 percent of the retested youngsters had left school in the interval between testing sessions. The performance on the second test tended to increase for all youngsters, but those who stayed in school made larger advances than those who dropped out, and the margin of advantage could not be accounted for by other relevant characteristics, such as race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES), that distinguished the composition of the two groups. Although the difference between groups was not large, neither was the comparison optimal, since it is likely that the development of most of the skills that are germane to standardized tests of the sort used as assessment devices in this exercise takes place much earlier. Nevertheless, comparisons of schooled versus unschooled persons over an extended period are impractical at earlier grade levels (although Heyns's [1978]