Do High School Exit Exams Influence Educational Attainment or Labor Market Performance?
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) State requirements that high school graduates pass exit exams were the leading edge of the movement towards standards-based reform and continue to be adopted and refined by states today. In this study, we present new empirical evidence on how exit exams influenced educational attainment and labor market experiences using data from the 2000 Census and the National Center for Education Statistics’ Common Core of Data (CCD). Our results suggest that the effects of these reforms have been heterogeneous. For example, our analysis of the Census data suggests that exit exams significantly reduced the probability of completing high school, particularly for black students. Read more May 2006 How Black and Hispanic Families Rate Their Schools Public Agenda (Reality Check 2006, Issue No. 2) It’s not the kind of atmosphere most adults would find helpful if they needed to study and learn – high dropout rates, kids promoted without learning, schools short
