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Making schools accountable through state testing was the preeminent educational reform of the 1990s. Thirty-nine states now administer some form of performance-based assessment; twenty-four states attach stakes to their tests; and forty states use tests scores for school accountability purposes (Stecher and Barron 1999). Proponents argue that using student scores on curriculum-based tests as a measure of school effectiveness encourages teachers to teach the curriculum. It sets a minimum standard against which schools can be judged; and it quantifies school “quality” in a way that parents and politicians can easily understand. By setting student improvement goals for schools, the state can motivate school personnel to reach continuously higher, while also identifying those schools unwilling or unable to meet the prescribed goals.
Critics argue that such testing does not promote “real” improvements in student learning. Rather, teachers and principals are motivated to meet “standards” by teaching to the test. Instead of creating an improved learning environment, these crude forms of assessment may reduce opportunities to learn higher-order skills, particularly for low-income students (McNeil and Valenzuela 1999). Critics also claim that state testing increases disadvantaged students' probability of dropping out by forcing students to repeat grades (Haney 1999, 2000; Shrag 2000). The most visible state-testing program is in Texas. The Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) is a battery of state tests given every spring to all students in public schools in grades three to eight and again in grade ten, where passing it serves as a requirement for high school graduation. Schools are evaluated both on the percentage of all of their students passing the TAAS and on the percentage of their low-income and minority students passing. Rewards for doing well and sanctions for doing poorly are both implicit and explicit. Schools that perform well relative to state norms are given an “exemplary” designation and financial bonuses to spend on pet projects. Schools that do poorly are given an “inadequate” designation. “Inadequate” schools get new management if they do not improve by the following year. Designations are widely publicized, so parents know how their children's school rates. Since designations take into account the proportion of disadvantaged students and the proportion of African-American and Latino students in a school, being exemplary in a poor or largely minority school may mean a lower pass rate than in an all-white or high-income school. The reason so many educational policymakers and politicians nationwide are looking to Texas is simple: the state has apparently achieved great success in raising average test scores and in closing the gap between disadvantaged and advantaged students, at least in the lower grades. Students in Texas have made substantial gains on the TAAS in all grades. In addition, they have made gains on an independent measure of achievement gains, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The NAEP results show Texas and North Carolina making the largest average gains among all states from 1990 to 1997 (Grissmer and Flanagan 1998). When states' fourth grade students are ranked by their 1996 NAEP mathematics scores, only five states come out ahead of Texas. Significantly, all five have much lower minority populations than Texas. The gains have been smaller on the fourth grade NAEP reading test but are still higher than gains nationally. Because of Texas's large Latino and African-American student population, educational gains in the state depend heavily on how well these minority groups do in school. The 1996 NAEP results for Texas's eighth graders and high school seniors are not as positive as those for fourth grade, mainly because the gap between minorities and whites in eighth grade did not decrease (and may have widened) in the higher grades (Fisher 2000; Haney 1999). In 1996-2000, Texas's mathematics scores in fourth grade continued to climb mainly because of large gains for black and especially Latino students. A higher proportion of Texas's white, black, and Latino students exceeded the basic skills level in the NAEP math test than their racial/ethnic counterparts in other states. Texas's Latino students scored higher by far in fourth grade math than Latino students in other states (see NAEP, 2001). Part of the difference in scores may have been caused by a greater percentage of minority students in Texas excluded from the test. Texas excluded about the same percentage of minority students from the NAEP because of learning disabilities and language proficiency as many other higher scoring states, but increases in the percent of African Americans and Latinos excluded between 1996 and 2000 in states such as Texas and North Carolina did reduce their gains relative to other states, especially on the fourth grade test (Carnoy and Loeb 2003). Even so, Texas student gains in basic math skills at this level in the 1990s are impressive. The 2000 NAEP math gains in Texas on the eighth grade test are much smaller, and Texas remains in the middle of the pack among states (Carnoy and Loeb 2003). However, the gains for Latino eighth graders in Texas in 1996-2000 were much higher than the national average Latino gains. Although Texas's accountability system seems to have been much better at raising minority students' elementary school NAEP math scores than scores in middle school and high school, Texas's Latino students appear to have made major gains on the eighth grade test as well. The effect of TAAS-type accountability on student performance in the higher grades is important. It does not make much sense to claim that student outcomes are improving if the criterion used to measure academic achievement does not result in “outcomes that count” for students' life success, such as increased school attainment or increased achievement sustained over time. In today's world, we measure better education by problem-solving competencies, high school completion and college attendance and completion. These are the “signals” that society values. Even if the implementation of the TAAS has not led to higher achievement or attainment for students, it may be beneficial in providing parents with information about their children's achievement and about the relative performance of the schools in their neighborhoods. However, if the TAAS leads to poorer student outcomes, then critics would have a strong case for seeking alternatives to state testing. Haney (2000) argues just that. He finds that high school completion rates have faltered as a result of the TAAS, especially among Latino and African-American students. The objective of this essay is to review Haney's findings and examine, to the extent the data allows, the impact that TAAS has had on students' educational attainment. We do this in two ways. First, we assess trends over time in statewide measures of test scores, progression through high school, high school completion, and high school seniors' college plans. Second, we analyze data on high schools to estimate whether rising test scores are coincident with rising dropout rates. We find strikingly high retention in the ninth grade that has increased over time. However, this trend began well before the implementation of the TAAS. If there is a link between retention and state policies it is likely to date back to the 1984 reform. Across high schools, we find little relationship between the TAAS and dropout rates. To the extent that this relationship does exist, it appears that higher TAAS scores in schools are associated with reduced, and not increased, dropout behavior.
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