Opportunity to learn: Impact of math course sequences on math performance among African American and Latino students

Based on archival math achievement data from a suburban school district serving 25,901 to 27,269 students over a seven-year period (1999-2005) the purpose of this study was to measure opportunity to learn (OTL) by analyzing the relationship between math course-sequences, ethnicity, and achievement as measured by the Washington State high school math assessment. A causal-comparative design was used to measure differences among scale scores across 8 ethnic and demographic groups (N=5,233). This study compared WASL math 10 scale score (IV) differences between three math course-sequence treatments (regular, accelerated, double-accelerated) and used the WASL math 7th grade score as a covariate. To accomplish this SPSS used the GLM routine to perform the ANCOVA analysis using a regression approach. ANCOVA controlled for initial differences between groups before a comparison of the within-groups and between-groups variance was made. Multiple regression found a strong relationship between the two tests (r=.745) for African American and Latino students. A stronger relationship was found between the two tests for All students (r=.793) providing predictive value for this high stakes test. Math course sequence was not significant for African American students (p=.674) nor when the two accelerated groups were collapsed and compared to the regular course sequence (p=.420). This was most likely attributable to uneven sample sizes. Math course sequences were significant for Latino students (p<001), and for All students (p<.001), and Ethnicity (p=.034).The study investigated how standards-based math course-sequences affected the achievement of different ethnic groups, reviewed the history of legal challenges, clarified the different secondary school math course placements, examined the social structure of the classroom, explored the level of teacher education needed to prepare students for algebra, and recommended policy implications for math course sequences. It added to the current knowledge of how math course sequences may affect overall achievement of minority students.