• Introduction
• Key Findings
• Reference

Over the years, various reform efforts have sought to improve the quality of education across the nation. In the early 1980s, the focus was on statewide curricula in core courses, a response to the report A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education 1983). Since then, to address issues of a quality education, efforts have emphasized courses in specific subject areas (e.g., mathematics and science), the number of courses completed, and the timeline for course completion.

Transcript studies serve as a barometer for changes in high school student coursetaking patterns, which, in combination with school course offerings, provide valuable information about the rigor of high school curricula across the nation. One such transcript study, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) High School Transcript Study (HSTS), periodically surveys the curricula being offered in our nation’s high schools and the coursetaking patterns of high school students.

This report presents findings from the HSTS 2000 and examines the trends and changes in high school curriculum and student coursetaking patterns for the past decade. The results from the HSTS 2000 are presented with respect to earned course credits, grade point average, and education achievement, as measured by the NAEP 2000 mathematics and science assessments.¹ In addition, results are compared across the transcript studies between 1990 and 2000 (HSTS 1990, HSTS 1994, HSTS 1998, and HSTS 2000). Findings are viewed throughout the report by selected student and school characteristics, including student gender, student race/ethnicity, school type (public vs. nonpublic), and region of the country.

Additional transcript studies were conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in 1982 in conjunction with the first follow-up of the High School and Beyond Longitudinal Study (HS&B), in 1987 as a study of the 11th-grade cohort of the 1986 NAEP, and in 1992 in conjunction with the second follow-up of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88). This report looks at the HSTS from 1990 to 2000 conducted in conjunction with NAEP, because it is only for these studies that the target population remains the same.

It should also be noted that trends in the relationship between coursetaking patterns and student achievement (as measured by NAEP) are not presented, since the corresponding NAEP assessment subjects differ across years. However, comparisons of coursetaking patterns are possible, due to the comparable analysis and course classification methodologies across the HSTS. The 2000 transcript study was conducted from May through October of 2000 after the administration of NAEP. Transcripts were collected for 12th-grade students who graduated high school by the end of the collection period. Most students also participated in the NAEP assessments earlier that same year.

Key Findings

Course credits earned

• Overall, the number of course credits² earned by high school graduates increased throughout the 1990s. In 2000, high school graduates earned an average of 26.2 course credits, compared to an average of 23.6 in 1990.
• The average number of credits earned in the core academic subject fields (mathematics, science, English, and social studies) increased from 13.7 to 15.0 between 1990 and 2000.
• High school graduates increased their number of earned credits in computer-related vocational courses from 0.4 in 1990 to 0.7 in 2000. In the same 10-year span, the number of credits earned by high school graduates in noncomputer-related vocational courses decreased from 3.5 to 3.1.
• Public high school graduates increased their number of earned course credits from 23.5 in 1990 to 26.2 in 2000.

• From 1990 to 2000, the grade point average³ (GPA) of high school graduates increased from 2.68 to 2.94 (with a highest possible GPA of 4.00).
• Of the 16 major course subjects covered by the HSTS 2000, mathematics and science courses proved the most difficult for high school students. High school graduates in the year 2000 earned mean GPAs of 2.60 and 2.67, respectively, for mathematics and science courses (table A), both lower than the mean GPAs for the other 14 course subjects. High school graduates also earned lower mathematics and science mean GPAs compared to other course subjects in the 1990, 1994, and 1998 transcript studies.
• In 2000, high school graduates who took Advanced Placement (AP) and/or International Baccalaureate (IB) courses in both mathematics and science earned an overall mean GPA of 3.61. This mean GPA was higher than that of graduates who took AP/IB mathematics courses only (3.53 GPA) or AP/IB science courses only (3.33 GPA).⁴ High school graduates who took neither AP/IB mathematics courses nor AP/IB science courses earned a lower overall mean GPA (2.85) than the AP/IB coursetaking subgroups.
• High school graduates in 2000 earned a higher mean GPA during grade 12 than in any other grade. The 2000 high school graduates earned a 12th-grade mean GPA of 3.03, compared to a 2.92 mean GPA for 9th grade, a 2.89 mean GPA for 10th grade, and a 2.92 mean GPA for 11th grade.
• Female high school graduates earned a higher overall mean GPA in 2000 than male high school graduates (3.05 vs. 2.83).
• The increase in the mean GPA of high school graduates from 1990 to 2000 was evident for all examined student and school characteristics (gender, race/ethnicity, school type, and region of the country).

• Public and nonpublic high school graduates differed in their mean NAEP 2000 mathematics assessment scores.⁵ Nonpublic high school graduates achieved a mean 318 mathematics assessment score (out of a possible 500 points), compared to the mean 300 mathematics assessment score achieved by public high school graduates (table B).
• Those HSTS 2000 graduates with AP/IB mathematics credits achieved a mean 345 NAEP mathematics assessment score, compared to the mean 297 mathematics assessment score achieved by graduates without AP/IB mathematics credits. Graduates with AP/IB science credits had a mean 179 NAEP science assessment score (out of a possible 300 points), compared to the mean 144 science assessment score achieved by graduates without AP/IB science credits (table C).
• High school graduates in the HSTS 2000 who earned mathematics course credits during the 12th grade earned higher scores on the NAEP 2000 mathematics assessment than graduates who last earned mathematics course credits before the 12th grade (table B).
• The NAEP 2000 science assessment scores earned by graduates differed by the highest science course level attained—the higher the science course level graduates attained, the higher the mean NAEP science assessment score they achieved (table C).
• A large positive correlation existed between the GPA that 2000 high school graduates earned in mathematics courses and their NAEP mathematics assessment scores. A medium positive correlation existed between their GPA in science courses and their NAEP science assessment scores.

National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Table A. Mean grade point average of high school graduates, by course subject: 1990, 1994, 1998, and 2000

Table B. Mean NAEP mathematics assessment scores for HSTS high school graduates, by school and student characteristics: 2000

Table C. Mean NAEP science assessment scores for HSTS high school graduates, by school and student characteristics: 2000

¹For HSTS 2000, the National Center for Education Statistics conducted a national survey of high school transcripts of 12th-grade students in conjunction with the NAEP 2000 mathematics and science assessments. The irregular frequency of the HSTS transcript studies prevents comparisons of HSTS data with data from the NAEP main mathematics and science assessments from previous years. The NAEP main assessments associated with HSTS 1994 and HSTS 1998 covered neither mathematics nor science. A NAEP main mathematics assessment occurred in 1990, but the design of HSTS 1990 linked HSTS data with NAEP data at the school level, not at the student level.

²Schools participating in the HSTS varied widely in their assignments of credits to their courses. The transcript study standardized the credits across schools such that one credit equals one Carnegie unit. One Carnegie unit equals a class period (45 to 60 minutes) that occurs once per day across the entire school year. Standardization to Carnegie units allows for an accurate comparison of course credits across schools within a transcript study and also allows for an accurate comparison between transcript studies over time.

³The GPA represents the average number of grade points a student earns for each graded high school course. Since not all schools have the same standards for course credits and grade scales, the HSTS converts course credits to standardized Carnegie units and assigns grade points based on the 4-point grade scale. No additional grade points were assigned for Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, or other honors classes.

⁴AP and IB mathematics courses include courses in precalculus, calculus, and statistics. AP and IB science courses include courses in biology, chemistry, physics, and environmental science.

⁵Public schools include all state-run elementary, secondary, charter, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Department of Defense schools. Nonpublic schools include Catholic schools, other religious schools, and all other private schools.