Intervention(s)
At its core, the intervention is a new math course that offers high school students the potential to earn both high school and college credit. High schools in Tennessee have traditionally offered a course called "Advanced Algebra and Trigonometry." The intervention is a new course, Dual-Credit College Algebra, with similar content that was developed by a team of secondary and postsecondary math instructors to be aligned to college math standards. Teachers implementing the new College Algebra course were provided with two days of training in the summer to become familiar with these standards. Students that took Dual-Credit College Algebra (typically 11th and 12th graders) would therefore be exposed to a standardized, college-level algebra curriculum, taught by a high school math instructor, and were also required to take a standardized final exam. Students who passed the course and the exam would earn both high school and college credit claimable at any public college in Tennessee. Students in the control condition remained exposed only to the traditional Advanced Algebra and Trigonometry course, which offered only high school credit, and which did not have a standardized curriculum. Treatment schools were expected to offer the Dual-Credit College Algebra course for both the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years.