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More States Are Making Their High-School Exit Tests Course-Specific
By Peter Schmidt
The focus of state high-school exit examinations is shifting from measuring basic skills to determining whether students have mastered the content of specific courses, according to a report being released today by the Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based research and advocacy organization.
When the center began tracking such tests in 2002, 10 states required students to pass "minimum competency" examinations to receive public high-school diplomas. The examinations measure how well students have acquired basic skills, typically at the eighth-grade level or below.
Now just two states—Minnesota and New Mexico—continue to tie high school diplomas to minimum-competency tests, and both plan to drop those exams in the coming years, the report says.
John F. (Jack) Jennings, the center's president, said such tests were adopted in the 1980s and 1990s to prod high schools to ensure their graduates could handle basic tasks, but they have fallen out of favor because "standards have gone beyond that now."
"I think states would justifiably be embarrassed giving a high-school diploma based on eighth-grade competency," Mr. Jennings said.
Meanwhile, the number of states tying high-school graduation to passage of "end of course" examinations in specific subjects has climbed from two in 2002 to four: Mississippi, New York, Tennessee, and Virginia. An additional 10 states plan to have such tests in place by 2015.
Seventeen other states now use a third type of mandatory high-school exit test—"comprehensive" examinations, which assess how students have mastered several subject areas, usually at the ninth- or 10th-grade level, the report says. It says that number will decline to 15 by 2015, and three of the states that will continue to use comprehensive tests—Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Washington State—will require students to pass end-of-course tests as well.
The report says states are switching to end-of-course exit examinations out of a belief that such tests increase academic rigor, improve school accountability, and help align high schools' curricula with state standards.
Although the newer end-of-course and comprehensive examinations hold the bar higher, few go so far as to ensure that students graduate from high school ready for college or work, the report says.
Moreover, it says, administering end-of-course examinations poses several logistical challenges. Among them, states need to figure out how to grade tests and get the results back to districts in a timely manner. They must also work out ways to ensure that students who fail tests get effective remediation in those courses.
Over all, the growth in the number of states using exit tests has slowed—partly because exit tests can be controversial, with parents often rebelling against their use after large numbers of students fail. In one form or another, exit tests are used by 23 states, and just three states without tests have plans to put them in place by 2015.
Among its other key findings, the report says:
The states that have adopted mandatory exit examinations tend to be those with substantial minority populations. The 23 states that now have such tests serve 68 percent of all of the nation's public high-school students but 74 percent of the public high-school students from minority groups.
Although every state with an exit examination offers an alternative path to graduation for students with disabilities, just three such states offer an alternative test for students who speak a language other than English at home.
Five states—Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, and Wyoming—require students to take the ACT test to graduate from high school, while Maine requires students to take the SAT (see a related article on the release of the latest ACT test scores). Students do not have to earn a minimum score on the tests to graduate. Instead, the tests are used to assess whether students are prepared for college and to encourage them to apply. In some cases, the tests are also used to measure students' mastery of high-school material.
— Peter Schmidt
Chronicle of Higher Education
2008-08-13
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