The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the academic achievement of students enrolled in an elective English program with the achievement of students enrolled in a traditional English program. The 320 subjects were eleventh and twelfth grade students at two New Jersey high schools, selected at random, and assigned to groups according to treatment, sex, and grade level. The results of the pretesting and posttesting were submitted to an analysis of covariance procedure to determine results against the following seven hypotheses: treatment effects=0, grade level effects=0, sex effects=0, treatment x grade level interaction=0, treatment x sex interaction=0, grade level x sex interaction=0, and treatment x grade level x sex interaction=0. The first hypothesis was found to be significant at the .05 level, and all others were found to be nonsignificant. It may be concluded that students enrolled in an elective English program do achieve more than their peers enrolled in a traditional program, and that the difference is due to the treatment and not to any other factor. Care should be exercised not to conclude that the advantage for the experimental group necessarily implies superiority large enough to warrant implementation of elective programs. (Author/RB)