High School Academics: Increasing the Standard

Authors

  • Ashley N. Gard Indiana State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18666/TPE-2017-V74-I3-7369

Keywords:

academic, high school, NCAA, intercollegiate, interscholastic, student athlete

Abstract

Beyond heightened academic requirements, student athletes face a multitude of tasks including weight training, practice, film review, and travel for competition. This makes the student’s life complex. As student athletes progress through their educational experience, they experience higher structured time demands in regard to their sport participation, this being very true for college freshman. “Many studies over the past ten years have documented the disconnect between what high school teachers teach and what postsecondary instructors expect with regard to students’ preparation for first-year credit-bearing courses in college” (Venezia & Jaeger, 2013, p. 119). As a result, states have adopted the Common Core in an attempt to level the educational field and prepare students for college rigor and their chosen career field. Meanwhile, the NCAA has also increased its initial eligibility rules to ensure incoming student athletes are ready for college rigor and athletic participation. However, the state and NCAA academic requirements have increased at different rates. As a result, student athletes are potentially unprepared for the academic rigors and challenges of college. In this study, I compared all 50 state course completion requirements to the 2014 NCAA initial eligibility standards. The results of this study show the specific qualitative differences in the interscholastic and intercollegiate academic requirements. Based on these differences, I provide recommendations of how interscholastic policy makers can adjust their academic requirements to align them better to those at the intercollegiate level.

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Author Biography

Ashley N. Gard, Indiana State University

Academic Advisor, College of Health and Human Services

Adjunct, Kinesiology, Recreation and Sport Department

Indiana State University

Adjunc, Kinesiology, Recreation and Sport Department

Eastern Illinois University

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Published

2017-09-20

Issue

Section

Articles