Advanced coursework in high school provides students who excel academically with appropriately challenging learning opportunities. Research indicates that access to advanced coursework is associated with higher postsecondary enrollment, highlighting the importance of widespread access to these courses.
Automatic enrollment in advanced education (also referred to as “auto-enrollment”) is an increasingly common policy lever that aims to expand access by automatically enrolling any student who meets an objective performance measure (e.g., state standardized assessment score from the previous year) in advanced courses. These policies are often applied to math first as math course progression tends to be relatively linear.
Historically, many districts have relied on teacher recommendations to identify students and ask them to opt in to advanced courses, a practice subject to personal bias that may leave out students who demonstrate readiness for more rigorous coursework. In contrast, auto-enrollment policies ensure that any student who exhibits readiness is given the opportunity to participate in advanced courses with an option to opt out.
At Education Commission of the States, we’ve identified at least seven states that have introduced auto-enrollment policies in recent years. Auto-enrollment policies in Texas and Washington represent different approaches that can provide insights for others considering similar policies.
Enabling District Flexibility and Autonomy in Texas
In 2023, Texas passed S.B. 2124, a statewide auto-enrollment policy that went into full effect during the 2023-24 school year. The law requires sixth grade students who scored in the top 40% of the fifth grade state math assessment be automatically enrolled in an advanced math course. This bill also allows families an option to opt out. To support implementation, the Texas Education Agency (TEA):
- Expanded the Texas Virtual School Network — a statewide course catalog of supplemental courses a student can take if it isn’t offered by their school, with the district covering the financial burden. This can be particularly helpful in rural areas.
- Hosts webinars featuring district leaders experienced in implementation.
- Requires districts to offer both a state and local assessment measure so students have multiple qualification pathways.
Although this was the first full year of implementation, Texas is already building a data infrastructure to track enrollment and persistence beginning in 2024-25. The state plans to review:
- How many students are placed in advanced math.
- How many opt out.
- Whether students persist and succeed in those courses.
TEA officials noted in our interview that some districts already go beyond the minimum requirements of the law. In a few cases, districts have chosen to auto-enroll all students in advanced math and then provide additional support to help them succeed instead of limiting participation to those who meet a specific score threshold. This reflects one of the policy’s core design features: that districts maintain flexibility and autonomy.
Supporting Low-Capacity Districts in Washington
Washington State’s Revised Code 28A.320.195 requires that, by school year 2021-22, school boards adopt an academic acceleration policy for high school students. Under this policy, districts must automatically enroll students who meet standards on statewide assessments into the next most rigorous level of courses in subjects such as math, English, social studies, humanities and related areas. School districts can include additional eligibility criteria as long as these criteria don’t result in inequities among student groups.
One of the primary implementation challenges has been insufficient instructional capacity, both in terms of staff and other necessary instructional resources, in remote, rural districts. Many of these districts are pursuing creative solutions to this issue, including:
- Using virtual learning platforms to provide advanced courses where limited capacity or resources prevent in-person instruction.
- Pooling instructional resources across Washington’s nine regional educational service districts.
These obstacles aren’t unique to Washington: Capacity issues, particularly for smaller and more remote districts, are a common challenge related to auto-enrollment policies. However, the approaches that Washington’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, regions and districts have employed to overcome these obstacles showcase the wide range of solutions available to similarly situated states or districts.
Washington and Texas offer two distinct approaches to expanding access to advanced coursework. Their experiences show that policy design, data infrastructure and district flexibility all shape how auto-enrollment impacts students. As more states consider similar efforts, these examples show the significance of aligning state-level policy with district-level realities.
