Exit Exams Face Pinch in Common-Core Push

With many states crafting assessments based on the common-core standards—and an increasing emphasis on college and career readiness—some are rethinking the kind of tests high school students must pass to graduate, or whether to use such exit exams at all.

Twenty-five states, enrolling a total of 34.1 million students, make exit exams a graduation requirement, according to a study released last month by the Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based think tank. That represents 69 percent of the nation's K-12 enrollment. And that's grown over the past decade: In 2003, 19 states representing 52 percent of U.S. enrollment had such exit exams.

But now states including Arizona, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island plan to use new common-core-aligned tests as exit exams in some form once those tests are fully implemented in 2014-15. Other states are less certain about their plans for the assessments being developed as part...