Academic courses taken by high school students

American Education, April, 1984 by Thomas D. Snyder

Recent reports have suggested that many high school students do not take enough academic courses. The National Commission on Excellence in Education recommended that high school graduates complete four years of English, three years each of mathematics, science, and social studies, and a semester of computer science. A new study by the National Center for Education Statistics found that fewer than 3 percent of the 1982 high school graduates satisfied these recommendations. if the computer science course requirement were excluded, fewer than one in seven of all students, and fewer than one in four of the college-bound students, would meet the recommendations.

The 1982 high school graduates earned an average of 12.9 credits in academic courses during their four years of high school. In general, students in private schools earned about three more academic credits than students in public schools. There was also considerable variation among the different regions of the country. Students in New England and the Middle Atlantic states graduated with the highest average, 14.3 credits, compared to the lows of 11.7 in the Mountain states and 11.9 in the East North Central and East South Central states. Ninth graders earned an average of 3.6 credits in academic subjects out of a total of 5.6 credits for the year (see accompanying chart). The average number of academic credits declined slightly in the 10th and 11th grades, before dropping to a low point of 2.6 credits in the senior year.

During the four years of high school, students earned more credits in English (3.8) than in any other academic subject. They are earned an average of 3.1 credits in social studies, 2.6 in mathematics, 2.2 in science and 1.1 credits in foreign languages. Students completed more mathematics and science courses in the ninth grade than in the other years of high school. In contrast, 11th and 12th graders took more courses in the social sciences. The average number of courses taken in foreign languages and in mathematics declined in each of the last three years of high school.

Although most students did not meet the Commission on Excellence recommendations, some earned more credits than required, particularly in certain subject areas. For example, the Commission recommended that students take three years of mathematics and three years of science, but 21 percent of the students took four or more units of mathematics, and 13 percent completed four or more science units. About one student in four received at least one credit more than required in social sciences and in foreign languages. But 16 percent of the students took only one mathematics unit and 29 percent only one unit of science. One-fourth of the college-bound high school graduates did not take any foreign language courses at all.

The courses completed by the graduates of 1982 varied considerably, depending upon the type of program they reported taking in high school. Vocational students took 4.6 fewer academic units than those in college preparatory programs, but only one unit less than students in general programs.