College Preparatory Curriculum for All: Academic Consequences of Requiring Algebra and English I for Ninth Graders in Chicago
Allensworth E, Nomi T, Montgomery N, Lee VE · 2009
grade Cquasi-experimentindependentunreplicated
Sample
~25,000 students per cohort (Chicago Public Schools)
Population
Chicago Public Schools 9th graders before and after the 1997 curriculum mandate.
Design
Interrupted time series across the 1997 policy that abolished remedial courses and required college-preparatory algebra and English I of every 9th grader. No comparison district, so secular trends are the main threat — hence grade C.
Key findings
Raising the bar by fiat fails. Universalizing college-preparatory coursework changed what courses were called, not what students learned: more failures, no test-score gain, no college-entry gain.
Genetic confound
Equal course LABELS applied to an unchanged ability distribution produced more failures, not more learning — which is the mechanism a hereditarian lens predicts when a mandate changes the label and not the instruction.
Replication notes
The 1997 failure is what motivated Chicago's 2003 double-dose algebra policy.
Effects
| Outcome | Metric | Value | Measure | Timing | Vs | Horizon | Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Course failures and grades | outcome | failure rates UP, GPA slightly down | standardized | 9th grade | none | end-of-treatment | attainment |
| Test scores and college entry | outcome | test scores FLAT; college entry flat | standardized | to +5 years | none | over-2yr | attainment |
Cited by
- Algebra timing — acceleration mandates, delay mandates, and readiness-based placementmixedconf: highgc: low