Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. Winters, Manhattan InstituteMay 2004
Critics of so-called "high-stakes" high school exit exams frequently argue that making a diploma depend on passing a standardized test will increase dropout rates by squeezing out students who will find it difficult to pass. But according to Jay Greene and Marcus Winters of the Manhattan Institute, there is little hard evidence to support this theory. In their study of the impact of exit exams on graduation rates, Greene and Winters use two "of the most widely respected" methods for arriving at notoriously difficult-to-calculate graduation rates - one method developed by Greene himself, the other by the National Center for Education Statistics. According to their findings, "Both analyses show that implementing a high school exit exam has no significant effect on a state's graduation rate." Though this analysis research doesn't indicate why, they conjecture that the number of students who fail to graduate because they cannot pass the exam might be small, since "passing exit exams might require very low levels of proficiency." They also propose that, since students have several chances to pass the exams before being denied a diploma - and are generally offered additional help once they've failed - any student who is serious about graduating should be able to. These findings are certainly good news to defenders of exit exams and should give (rational) critics of "high stakes" testing a reason to reconsider. To read the report, click here.
