High Stakes Testing and High School Completion

This goes in the "I can't believe I forgot about this report!" file. The following is from a Statement published by the National Board on Educaitonal Testing and Public Policy. Click the link to read the full statement. This group has a number of important publications available on their website.

High Stakes Testing and High School Completion

Marguerite Clarke, Walter Haney, and George Madaus, National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy
Carolyn A. and Peter S. Lynch School of Education, Boston College

Volume 1, Number 3— January 2000

All schools test their students – on spelling and fractions, the content of yesterday's lecture, what they've learned this semester. Educational tests range from pop quizzes to so-called high stakes tests: those used as a basis for entrance to kindergarten, for promotion to the next grade, for graduation, to determine teachers' and schools' effectiveness, and more.

It's a bull market for high stakes testing that far surpasses the rush of the early 1970s to test minimum competency. We now call them assessments rather than tests; but the issues surrounding their uses and effects are the same. Assessments 'worth teaching to' will bring about better teaching and learning; students will be better motivated; dropout rates will drop and graduation rates increase – or so we are told.(note 1)

But the evidence does not necessarily support these conjectures. Occasionally, it even suggests the opposite. In this report, the National Board examines how high stakes assessments affect dropout and high school completion rates – important indicators of the health of any educational system. In particular, we look at five suggestive lines of evidence on this relationship, drawn in part from studies done at Boston College or by National Board researchers.

Our conclusion is that high stakes testing programs are linked to decreased rates of high school completion. The evidence is mainly correlational. However, it is suggestive enough to warrant further research to clarify the role of high stakes testing in decisions to drop out of school. We have made suggestions for the forms this research might take."

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