Researchers Connect Lower Achievement, High School Exit Tests

As President Bush promotes his plans for expanding high-stakes testing in the nation’s high schools, a new study has found that states that already have such exams in place have lower graduation rates and college-entrance-exam scores than states that don’t have them.

The study, published Jan. 21 in the electronic journal Education Policy Analysis Archives, zeroes in on 18 states that require high school students to pass an exam in order to graduate. When compared with students in 33 states or territories without such requirements, students in the exit-exam states tended to have both lower scores on the SAT admissions exam and lower graduation rates.

The research is the latest of a half a dozen or more recent studies that attempt to gauge the impact of the growing push to step up student testing and to hold schools or students...