There is a new paper out from the National Bureau of Economic Research that takes a look at high school exit exams.
Do High School Exit Exams Influence Educational Attainment or
Labor Market Performance?
by Thomas S. Dee, Brian A. Jacob – #12199 (CH ED)
Abstract:
State requirements that high school graduates pass exit exams were
the leading edge of the movement towards standards-based reform and
continue to be adopted and refined by states today. In this study, we
present new empirical evidence on how exit exams influenced
educational attainment and labor market experiences using data from
the 2000 Census and the National Center for Education Statistics’
Common Core of Data (CCD). Our results suggest that the effects of
these reforms have been heterogeneous. For example, our analysis of
the Census data suggests that exit exams significantly reduced the
probability of completing high school, particularly for black
students. Similarly, our analysis of grade-level dropout data from
the CCD indicates that Minnesota’s recent exit exam increased the
dropout rate in urban and high-poverty school districts as well as in
those with a relatively large concentration of minority students.
This increased risk of dropping out was concentrated among 12th grade
students. However, we also found that Minnesota’s exit exam lowered
the dropout rate in low-poverty and suburban school districts,
particularly among students in the 10th and 11th grades. These
results suggest that exit exams have the capacity to improve student
and school performance but also appear to have exacerbated the
inequality in educational attainment.
http://papers.nber.org/papers/W12199
It’s those last six words that get me. If the exit exams prevent students who haven’t learned the bare minimum to warrant a diploma, why say that they exacerbate “inequality in educational attainment?” It seems to me that they simply reflect the fact that there is inequality in educational attainment. Is it taboo to say that?
Hat tip: Frank Stevenson
