Our nation's bleak economic situation has forced state governments to cut educational funding. While funds are decreasing, accountability for student achievement remains high. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) forces each state to create and implement an accountability system of rewards and sanctions based on standardized test scores. In Arizona, Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) is the standardized test that measures student achievement. When a lack of academic achievement on AIMS is perceived, Career and Technical Education, Foreign Language, and Fine Arts course offerings often find themselves in need of justification.

This study investigates if elective course enrollment predicted a student's achievement on AIMS reading, writing and math tests, controlling for the student's achievement in his or her corresponding core courses. The statistical analyses included enrollment data, frequency distributions, descriptive statistics, zero order correlation analyses, and regression coefficients and significance.

The study included 1231 sophomore, first time test takers at Higley Unified School District. The zero-order correlation analyses indicated that there was only one significant moderating effect of gender, female with the AIMS writing score. The other remaining moderating effect resulted in not significant for gender, academic year, and school attended, and was not included in the study. Students' average English grades were significant as a predictor to achievement on Reading and Writing AIMS test scores, as well as average math grades for Math AIMS, for all three elective areas. Performance was significant as a predictor of achievement on AIMS in all three elective areas. The number of courses taken in CTE and Fine Arts did not result in significance as a predictor. The number of Foreign Language elective classes was significant as a predictor to achievement on AIMS scores.

Limitations included district demographics, sample size and level of rigor in course selection. Implications for educational administrators such as professional development, elective course scheduling, counselor support and integration of curriculum are discussed in the conclusion. The relationship of elective choices to other standardized tests and analysis of sequential courses is recommended for further research.