The Southern Regional Education Board, a nonprofit organization started by governors, said that of the 1,200 high schools it works with in 32 states, about half now require students to specialize, though not all have gone so far as to require majors. In New York City, where the small schools movement has spawned Food and Finance High School and the Academy of Hospitality and Tourism, education officials said that a handful of other schools that focus on business, science or math have established majors for their students.

“This is like the middle-class version of what affluent families have been doing for years,” said Mitchell Stevens, an associate professor of education and sociology at New York University, who sees the move as a way for public schools to provide a broader menu of educational choices. “They tailor academic instruction around the needs and desires of their children in order to encourage them to do well in school.”

Here in Englewood, every eighth-grader already works with a guidance counselor to formulate a six-year academic career plan that stretches through the first year of college. Elementary-school classrooms are named Harvard, Yale and Rutgers. The district’s 1,063 high school students attend classes in Gothic-style buildings on a 40-acre campus named for Dwight Morrow, a former senator and diplomat whose daughter, Anne, married Charles Lindbergh.

Surrounded by top-performing school districts, Dwight Morrow’s students have scored below the state average on basic skills tests. In the 2005-6 school year, 79.6 percent passed the state reading test and 65.4 percent the math test, compared with 83.5 percent and 75.9 percent statewide.

District officials said they are establishing the majors to personalize the learning experience and engage students, and because college admissions officers have said over the years that they favor students with expertise in particular areas since it demonstrates commitment and passion.

“We need to stay ahead of what traditional high schools are doing,” said the superintendent, Carol A. Lisa. “We felt in this district we had to level the playing field so our children could compete and go to top schools.”

Michael A. Polizzi, an assistant superintendent, said the district carefully researched future demand for jobs, examined college programs and surveyed students about their interests before settling on its first six majors: sports management, fine and performing arts, health sciences, international studies and global commerce, communications and new media and or liberal arts. In 2008, the school plans to add environmental studies and a “preteaching institute.”