The substance and impact of state-level reforms related to student standards are presented by: (1) providing information on the currrent state of educational reforms aimed at raising student standards; (2) summarizing research designed to identify linkages between higher standards and student outcomes; (3) exploring the strength of relationships between higher standards and student outcomes; (4) examining trends among indicators associated with higher student standards; and (5) discussing data and methods available to those concerned with the relationship of higher educational standards to student outcomes. The first of four chapters briefly describes the range of state initiatives designed to achieve higher student standards and the problems associated with assessing their impacts, as well as the data available for examining student outcomes. Chapter 2 discusses the great variety of reform activities that have occurred at the state level between 1983 and 1990 and places them in a historical context. Chapter 3 looks at research on trends in student outcomes and linkages to school reform such as student course-taking patterns, the proportion of school time devoted to academic subjects, student achievement, and high school completion rates. The last chapter discusses issues associated with studying the impact of state reforms and suggests some analytical strategies that might be used to describe linkages between reforms and student outcomes. Three appendixes provide the following information: (1) minimum high school graduation requirements for standard diplomas: 1980 and 1990; (2) an overview of researching reform and student outcomes using selected databases; and (3) standard error tables. (53 references) (MLF)

The substance and impact of state-level reforms related to student standards are presented by: (1) providing information on the currrent state of educational reforms aimed at raising student standards; (2) summarizing research designed to identify linkages between higher standards and student outcomes; (3) exploring the strength of relationships between higher standards and student outcomes; (4) examining trends among indicators associated with higher student standards; and (5) discussing data and methods available to those concerned with the relationship of higher educational standards to student outcomes. The first of four chapters briefly describes the range of state initiatives designed to achieve higher student standards and the problems associated with assessing their impacts, as well as the data available for examining student outcomes. Chapter 2 discusses the great variety of reform activities that have occurred at the state level between 1983 and 1990 and places them in a historical context. Chapter 3 looks at research on trends in student outcomes and linkages to school reform such as student course-taking patterns, the proportion of school time devoted to academic subjects, student achievement, and high school completion rates. The last chapter discusses issues associated with studying the impact of state reforms and suggests some analytical strategies that might be used to describe linkages between reforms and student outcomes. Three appendixes provide the following information: (1) minimum high school graduation requirements for standard diplomas: 1980 and 1990; (2) an overview of researching reform and student outcomes using selected databases; and (3) standard error tables. (53 references) (MLF)

The 1994 High School Transcript Study (HSTS) provides the Department of Education and other policymakers with information about current course offerings and students' course-taking patterns in the nation's secondary schools. One objective was to determine changes in course offering and selection patterns since the previous studies in 1982, 1987, and 1990. Another objective was to compare course-taking patterns to results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), an assessment of educational achievement nationwide. In 1994, transcripts were collected for more than 25,000 students who graduated from high school that year. These students were from 340 schools that participated in the NAEP. Information in this report documents a significant increase since 1982 in the percentage of graduates completing curricula recommended by the National Commission on Excellence in Education. As of 1994, over 25% of high school graduates are completing programs satisfying the Commission's recommendations for college-bound graduates, and nearly one-third are completing the Commission's core curriculum. Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of this report contain highlights of the study results, descriptions of the studies from 1982 through 1994, an introduction to the tables of data, a brief description of subject taxonomy, a discussion of the comparability of samples in the studies, and directions for testing the significance of differences reported in the tables. Appendix A contains tables of study data, and Appendix B lists study codes for each category of data. (Contains 121 tables.) (SLD)

"Compelling arguments, supported by both anecdotal and empirical evidence to convince readers that school choice does nothing to improve the quality of education. ... Solidly researched and written, Smith's and Meier's effort should sway those still undecided on the issue". -- Publishers Weekly

The decade of the 1980s saw great change in the educational system. This report examines the changing demographics of high school students over the last decade and investigates the impact that these changes may have had on high school dropout rates. Specifically, the study examined the changing nature of the high school population during the last decade and describes the different effects of various student-level characteristics on the propensity for students to drop out of school between 1980 and 1982 compared to 1990 and 1992. The report provides data that depict changes in the characteristics of students' families, in students' economic backgrounds, in dropout rates, and in the characteristics of dropouts. Data show that during the 1980s, a growing number of students with characteristics traditionally associated with school failure began attending high school; at the same time, high school dropout rates decreased by almost 50 percent. The declines occurred among students with a variety of characteristics--minority and majority students, students in intact families and nonintact families, and students with children of their own living in their household. Many groups of students traditionally considered "at risk" for school failure dropped out at lower rates in 1990 than in 1980. However, there were other groups of students whose dropout rates did not improve. These were students from poor families, who had histories of poor academic achievement, and who had multiple risk factors in their backgrounds. The study used data on two cohorts of high school sophomores collected by the National Center for Education Statistics--the sophomore cohort of 1980 from the High School and Beyond (HS&B) study, and the sophomore cohort of 1990 from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88). Appendices contain methodological notes, standard error tables, and multivariate analyses. Eight figures and 57 tables are included. (LMI)