Achieve, Inc.
June 10, 2004
Achieve has again set off a chorus of wailing with its latest publication, this time on the defects of graduation exams in six states. This new study finds that the tests aren't all that difficult - the subject matter is mostly 9th and 10th grade stuff, and the cut scores are low. (Or as the report puts it, the math tests "cover material students in most other countries study in the 7th or 8th grade.") And while many states - Ohio and Maryland among them - have made strides in strengthening their tests, they have quite a distance yet to travel before these tests are a serious measure of appropriate 12th grade skills, the sort recommended by the American Diploma Project and expected by the real world of college and the job market. Considering that students have multiple opportunities to pass these tests, we're not sure they're quite as "high-stakes" as everyone likes to pretend. Still, Achieve has done an estimable job of laying out the facts in business-like fashion. Check it out here.
"Report: Graduation tests have 'modest expectations,'" Associated Press, June 10, 2004
"Study finds exit exams don't measure up," Associated Press, June 11, 2004