Why Graduation Tests/Exit Exams Fail to Add Value to High School Diplomas

Peter D. Hart. "Why Graduation Tests/Exit Exams Fail to Add Value to High School Diplomas". Fair Test. May 2nd, 2008.

http://www.fairtest.org/gradtestfactmay08

Graduation tests do not promote the knowledge, skills and habits needed for success in college or skilled work. According to college professors and employers, high school graduates must be able to analyze conflicting explanations, support arguments with evidence, solve complex problems that have no obvious answer, reach conclusions, conduct research, and engage in the give-and-take of ideas (National Research Council, 2002). Also needed are attributes such as good study skills, time management, awareness of one’s performance and persistence. Since exit exams do not measure most of these important attributes, test scores have little value for colleges or employers. (Peter D. Hart, 2008).

Graduation tests do not make high school diplomas more valuable to employers. There is no evidence that exit exams make diplomas more meaningful in the labor market. In fact, recent research found no positive impact on employment status or wages in states with high school exit exams. There was also no impact on numbers of high school graduates going to college (Warren et al., 2007).
Most state standards-based high school tests are not aligned with college-level work or employment. Most tests just try to measure basic academic skills. They rely primarily on multiple-choice questions, some adding a few short written pieces. They rarely require students to apply their learning or engage in higher-level thinking. According to Stanford Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, “Most jobs in today's knowledge-based economy require that we find, assemble and analyze information, write and speak clearly and persuasively; and work with others to solve messy problems,” none of which are measured by multiple choice exams (Darling-Hammond, 2005). College requires similar skills.

This article made many strong arguments to prove that graduation tests are a bad idea to implement them into schools. They said that graduation tests do not promote the knowledge, skills and habits needed for success in college or skilled work. Also that according to college professors and employers, high school graduates must be able to analyze conflicting explanations, solve complex problems that have no obvious answer, reach conclusions, and engage in the give-and-take of ideas. Also needed are attributes such as good study skills, time management, and persistence. Since exit exams do not measure most of these important attributes, test scores have little value for colleges or employers.