A+ for Rigor: states are learning that students not only do better when they are challenged in school, but also stay to graduate.

• Author: Deye, Sunny

If you make high schools tougher with more rigorous math and English classes, fewer students will drop out and more will graduate and go on to college.

Can this be true?

It is in Indiana where a rigorous core curriculum has been getting results for more than a decade.

The state's Core 40 program, developed with input from business and higher education leaders, prepares students for college and careers by making sure they take the right classes in English, math, science and social studies. Since 1994, participation in the Core 40 has been voluntary, but in 2005 legislators voted to require it for all students. Core 40 becomes Indiana's required high school curriculum in the fall of 2007. To opt out requires parental consent.

Core 40 includes academically rigorous courses in language arts, mathematics, science and social studies, physical education/health and wellness, and electives including world languages, technical and fine arts. In addition, students can earn Core 40 with Academic Honors and Core 40 with Technical Honors diplomas.

"With the loss of manufacturing jobs in Indiana, students must be ready to go on to college or prepared to enter the workforce with better skills for success," says Representative Greg Porter.

The percentage of students earning a Core 40 or more rigorous Academic Honors diploma rose from 13 percent in the 1993-94 academic year to 65 percent in 2003-04. Since the 1980s, when this work began, Indiana has moved from 40th to 10th in the nation in the percentage of high school graduates going to college.

Indiana also is aggressively fighting its dropout problem. Until 2005, the state had reported a graduation rate of approximately 90 percent, a figure that didn't include students who dropped out between school years. Researchers estimated that the state's actual graduation rate was closer to 72 percent.

In 2005, the General Assembly passed a bill that required calculating dropouts by using the number of incoming freshman and comparing that to the number of seniors graduating four years later. Now, graduation rates are reported at a little better than 70 percent.

"We needed to get a true handle on how many young people were dropping out of the system," says Representative Luke Messer. "As in most states, our graduation rate was vastly over-reported."

Indiana's dropout rates are similar to the national graduation rates reported by the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center for the 2002-03 school year. EPE finds that approximately 70 percent of all students in the nation graduate from high school with a regular diploma, with large disparities across racial and ethnic groups.

One solution in Indiana was to raise the dropout age from 16 to 18, and tighten restrictions on reasons students can leave school.

"The 16-year-old dropout age was based on a set of assumptions that are out of date," Messer says. "Maybe 30 years ago you could still get a manufacturing job and make enough money to live and raise a family. But today, high school dropouts are much more likely to be on public assistance...