Effects of Failing a High School Exit Exam on Course Taking, Achievement, Persistence, and Graduation

Abstract

The increasing use of state-mandated public high school exit exams is one manifestation of the current movement in U.S. public schooling toward more explicit standards of instruction and accountability. Exit exam requirements implicitly argue that raising the bar for graduation creates incentives both for students to work harder in school and for schools to increase their efforts for low-achieving students. Such incentives should most strongly affect the motivation of students who fail an exit exam the first time they take the test because failing provides a clear signal of students' need to improve their academic skills. Others argue that failing an exit exam discourages low-achieving students from staying in school. In this article, the authors use a regression discontinuity design and studentlevel longitudinal data from four large California public school districts to estimate the effect of failing a high school exit exam in 10th grade on subsequent student achievement, course taking, persistence in high school, and graduation. The analyses show no evidence of any significant or sizeable effect of failing the exam on high school course-taking, achievement, persistence, or graduation for students with test scores near the exit exam passing score. In each case, the estimates are precise enough to rule out modest to large effects. This implies that the negative impacts of high school exit exam policies on graduation rates found in other studies are more likely a result of reduced graduation rates of very low-achieving students than of discouragement of marginally lowachieving students.

The impact of high school exit exams on graduation rates and achievement

“…The increased standards and achievement raise the value of the diploma as a signal of graduates' ability, which improves the labor market and college application prospects of graduates by reducing informational asymmetries in the labor and college market. At the school policy level, the HSEE provides a means of measuring school performance, making schools accountable for teaching the material for which they are responsible Reardon, Arshan, Atteberry, and Kurlaender, 2010). The state can be sure that tested schools will work towards achieving the standards on which they are tested.…”

“…This supports the intuition that HSEEs may motivate students and help focus their efforts on mastery of relevant material, but also highlights the importance of designing an exam that measures relevant content. Reardon, Arshan, Atteberry, and Kurlaender (2010) examine the impact of failing an HSEE in 10 th grade-with two years remaining to pass before graduationand find that barely failing the exam has no effect on students' academic trajectories, course taking, or graduation probability except for the very lowest achievers. Those authors conclude that negative effects of HSEEs on graduation rates come exclusively from the very lowest achievers.…”

“…As part of the increasing trend towards school accountability and standards-based education over the past two decades, most American states have implemented high school exit exam (HSEE) policies requiring that all high school students pass a test to graduate (Reardon, Arshan, Atteberry, and Kurlaender, 2010). Exit exams ideally ensure a minimum achievement level for high school graduates and raise the value of high school diplomas, but many scholars worry about the negative effects of such exams on student motivation, graduation rates, and equity (Dee and Jacob, 2006).…”

Teachers’ Perceptions on the Changes in the Curriculum and Exit Examinations for Biology and Human Biology

“…Despite the public (or politicians') call for more measures for educational accountability, the actual effects are mainly discussed normatively rather than reviewed empirically in educational discourse (Maag Merki 2010;Reardon, Arshan, Atteberry, & Kurlaender, 2010). For example, after conducting a meta-analysis, Holme and her colleagues (2010) concluded that a limited number of existing empirical studies show the inconsistent or inconclusive effects of exit examinations on teaching and learning.…”

“…Other researchers claim that the exit examinations increase the consistency in curriculum and instruction, but teachers often focus on test preparation too much and reduce time for class discussions or creative activities (Gayler, 2005;Zabala & Minnici, 2007). Yet other researchers claim that an exit examination exacerbates education inequality and increases the dropout rate of low-income minority students (Dee & Jacob, 2007) while others say it has no effect (Reardon et al, 2010). Overall, research studies have found that the positive effects of compulsory graduation examinations on instructional practices are either inconclusive (Holme et al, 2010) or largely dependent on schools, individuals, subjects and states rather than the existence of the exit examination itself (Baumert & Watermann, 2000;Maag Merki, 2010;Vogler & Carnes, 2009).…”