California ranks 39th in the nation in the percentage of high school graduates who go on to get a bachelor’s degree.

There are many breaks, leaks and bottlenecks  in the college pipeline. But the diversion starts in high school, with only one-third of graduates fulfilling the a-g requirement.

That’s the 15 courses required for admission to a four-year state school. It includes four years of English, three years of math, including Algebra II, two years of a foreign language, two years of history and two years of a lab science. Students need at least a C in every a-g course to get accepted by a CSU school, and they will need B average or above  to get into the school of their choice (and a lot higher for a UC campus).

San Jose Unified, with 30,000 students, became the first sizable district in the state to make a-g the default curriculum. It took effect with the class of 2002, and the district has had some success, particularly with low-income and Hispanic students, who comprise about half of the district’s 30,000 students.

For 2008, 41.3 percent of all graduates were eligible for a CSU school, with a C in every course, compared with 33.9 percent statewide. For Hispanics, the results were 29.1 percent CSU-eligible in San Jose Unified, compared with only 22.5 percent statewide and 23.6 percent in Santa Clara County. The percentage of CSU-eligible African-American graduates, a tiny portion of San Jose Unified, was identical to the state: only 23.3 percent.

Another plus: San Jose Unified’s graduation rate hasn’t fallen since a-g was adopted.

There are strong arguments for making a-g the default curriculum: Once expectations are raised, students will rise to achieve them. All schools in a district will be forced to offer college prep courses to all students. Schools will stop tracking students, channeling minority students into easier courses, under the assumption they can’t handle the work. Counselors will direct students to start thinking about college in ninth grade. Some smart and capable students in San Jose Unified who would never have thought about college are now heading there.

In a 2006 report, “Removing The Roadblocks: Fair College Opportunities for All California Students,” UCLA researchers with the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access and UC’s All Campus Consortium for Research Diversity, pointed to glaring disparities in access to college preparatory classes by race and income.

Hispanic and African-American students face a “double layer of inequality,” the report said. First, schools where those minorities are the majority are less likely to offer a-g courses, and fewer of their teachers have the knowledge and credentials to teach them. Second, if they attend majority White and Asian schools, they will have fewer chances to take a-g classes.

The report recommended that a-g become the default curriculum. But few districts have followed San Jose Unified’s example – and none in Santa Clara County, although most districts have significantly expanded AP course and college-prep offerings. The Legislature has swatted down the idea as well.

Career technical advocates have raised the loudest objections. They argue that it’s wrong to force students with no interest in attending a four-year college to take a college-prep curriculum. It will divert them from job and technical training that they could excel in. And they also worry that imposing a-g material on career technical  courses will water down technical training.

And then, of course, simply adopting a college-prep curriculum will not ensure that students are proficient in it. Many minority students continue to arrive in 9th grade in San Jose Unified behind grade level.

A higher college graduation rate is obviously not going to improve anytime soon, not with the California State University System planning to drop places for 40,000 students – 7 percent – over the next 18 months, and the University of California announcing soon it will cut another 2,500 student seats next year. Not with many CSU campuses shutting down spring transfers from community colleges. And not with community colleges sputtering from an overload of new students.

But the failure to produce enough college graduates – especially with majors and skills matching the job market — will remain after the budget crisis ends. That’s why there are stark predictions of a chronic shortage by 2025 of workers with a four-year degree. Establishing a-g as a standard curriculum everywhere will continue to be proposed – and contested – as part of a solution.

Should a-g be the default curriculum?” will be the subject of a forum, sponsored by the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, tomorrow  from  11:30am – 1:15 pm, at eBay, North Campus, 2161 North 1^st St., San Jose. Here are the details. If you can’t make it, stay tuned. I’ll be writing about the event later in the week.

By John Fensterwald on November 16th, 2009