Developments on High Stakes Testing

Twenty-three states currently require students to pass a set of high school exit examinations in order to graduate from high school, according to a recent report on the status of high school exit exams from the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Education Policy (CEP). Since 2002, there has been a growing trend for these states to administer these exams in contrast to the minimum-competency exams many states used to administer. By 2012, three more states are expected to transition to high stakes exit exams. Today, 68% of all high school students attend school in states that have these policies, and 75% of students of color are subject to theses examination requirements.

Although all states that require exit exams offer alternative paths to graduation, exit exams remain controversial. Recently, litigation in two states challenged the legality of exit exams policies. In 2006, a group of students who failed Arizona’s high school exit exam, Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) brought Espinoza v. State of Arizona. The plaintiffs argued that the exit exam had a disparate impact on racial, socioeconomic, and English Language Learner subgroups. Additionally, the plaintiffs contended that the state was underfunding educational services. On September 8, 2008, the Superior Court of Arizona found in favor of the defendants, thus enabling high stakes exit exams to continue to be used in Arizona high schools.

Plaintiffs in the California case of Valenzuela v. O’Connell fared better. They argued that the state has a responsibility to provide students with adequate access and opportunities to learn if they are to hold students accountable in this way. The suit led to a settlement that was codified in Assembly Bill 347. The settlement leaves the exam in place but requires, among other things, that students who reach grade 12 without passing the exam receive two additional years of academic assistance in the material tested on the exam at no charge to them.

Analyzing the multi-faceted assault on high stakes testing in a recent article, Cornell Law School Professor Michael Heise has concluded that litigation, and even the threat of litigation, has caused states to make high stakes tests more attentive to due process and equal protection concerns. In addition, policy makers generally have reduced their litigation exposure by “making the tests more forgiving;” making the tests easier so that fewer students will fail may, however, reduce the “tests’ efficacy as a meaningful lever for educational policy reform.”