Do Gatekeeper Courses Expand Education Options

摘要

Enrollment in advanced level math and foreign language courses while in high school is not always an option for most students. It requires advance planning by both the student and his/her parents. For example, the parents who have high expectations for his/her childs education realize that many advanced level courses require prerequisites. Thus, planning and enrolling in the necessary foundation courses, such as algebra and foreign language during eighth grade, can place a student higher in the math and foreign language pipelines and may eventually lead to decisions, such as applying to college, that are highly related to attending a college. According to the U.S. Department of Educations white paper, Mathematics Equals Opportunity (1997), students who plan to take advanced mathematics courses during high school and begin to study algebra during middle school are at a clear advantage. With this potential advantage in mind, this report examines the relationship between enrollment in algebra or foreign language as an eighth-grader in combination with high school course-taking patterns (math and foreign language) with applying to a four-year college/university. For this analysis, pipeline intensity (see appendix A) variables were created for math and foreign language. The data in this report were obtained from the base-year and second follow-up surveys of the National Education Longitudinal Study of the Eighth Grade Class of 1988 (NELS: 88). NELS: 88 began with a sample of 1,052 schools and 24,599 eighth-graders. While in high school, these eighth-grade cohort members were re-surveyed in 1990 and 1992 to determine their educational progress and school, work, and community experiences. Data from the base-year (1988) and second follow-up (1992, with 12,053 students in cohort) surveys were used in this report (see appendix A for technical detail). The results of this report apply to students who were eighth-graders in 1988 and graduated from high school in 1992.