An Evaluation of Credit Recovery as an Intervention for High School Students Who Fail Courses

Credit recovery (CR) refers to online courses that high school students take after previously failing the course. Many have suggested that CR courses are helping students to graduate from high school without corresponding increases in academic skills. This study analyzes administrative data from the state of North Carolina to evaluate these claims using full data from public and private CR providers. Findings indicate that students who fail courses and enroll in CR have lower test scores of up to two tenths of a standard deviation and are about seven percent more likely to graduate high school on time than students who repeat courses traditionally. Test score differences are particularly large for Biology compared to Math I and English II. Hispanic and economically disadvantaged CR students are more likely to graduate high school than their peers.

学分补救（CR）指的是高中生在先前某门课程不及格之后所参加的在线课程。很多人提出，学分补救课程在帮助学生从高中毕业的同时，学生的学业技能却没有相应提高。本研究分析了来自北卡罗来纳州的管理数据，利用公立和私立学分补救课程提供者的完整数据来评估这些说法。研究结果表明，课程不及格并参加学分补救课程的学生，其考试分数比传统重修课程的学生低，最多可达0.2个标准差，并且按时从高中毕业的可能性大约高出7%。与数学I和英语II相比，生物学的考试分数差异尤其大。西班牙裔以及经济条件不利的学分补救课程学生比同龄人更有可能从高中毕业。