Understanding Dropouts Statistics, Strategies, and High-Stakes Testing (2001) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-8
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If testing is improperly used, it can have negative effects, such as encouraging school leaving, that can hit disadvantaged students hardest. The committee was concerned that the recent proliferation of high school exit examinations could have the unintended effect of increasing dropout rates among students whose rates are already far higher than the average, and has taken a close look at what is known about influences on dropout behavior and at the available data on dropouts and school completion.
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Students drop in or out of school or may return to school or take the GED years after their expected graduation dates. Moreover, in a society characterized by both high rates of immigration and high rates of internal mobility, students frequently move among schools, districts, and states.
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Recommendation 1: The committee recommends to states and districts and to both researchers and funders of research that priority be placed on collecting key data that are disaggregated to allow monitoring of such populations as different minority groups, English-language learners, and students with disabilities. These data should cover: • which students, and how many students, are receiving credentials, including GED certification, that are different from the generally prevailing standards for high-school graduation; • the nature of the academic requirements that lead to such credentials, and the extent to which those requirements are different from the generally prevailing standards for high school graduation; • the processes by which students are directed to or choose to pursue such alternate credentials; and • the later educational and employment outcomes for the students who receive these credentials.
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Recommendation 3: The committee recommends that policy makers, researchers, and funders of research consider the urgent need for the following kinds of additional data (disaggregated to allow monitoring of such populations as different minority groups, English-language learners, and students with disabilities) : • data that allow valid comparisons across states and, possibly, across smaller jurisdictions; • longitudinal data that allow tracking of a greater diversity of student pathways, such as participation in alternatives to traditional secondary schooling and the earning of alternatives to the traditional diploma; • data that allow separate reporting on the progress of students who take the GED or follow other alternate pathways, both while they are in school and after they leave school, whether they are employed, unemployed, or participating in postsecondary education; • data that allow improved tracking of students at risk for dropping out because of factors that may be apparent in elementary and middle school, such as temporary dropping out in early grades, absenteeism, retention in grade, and the like.
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Improved understanding of the possible differences between these students and students who drop out of school before the end of twelfth grade, and about the effects of failing the exam on these students' future education and employment will be an important part of understanding the effects of exit exams. Recommendation 5: The committee recommends that jurisdictions that administer exit exams collect detailed data on students who complete the twelfth grade but fail exit exams and so do not graduate (disaggregated to allow monitoring of such populations as different minority groups, English-language learners, and students with disabilities)
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Other characteristics of schooling, such as the composition of the school and its climate, practices, and resources may affect dropout behavior as well. Many of these factors suggest that dropout prevention programs targeted at high school or even middle school students hold less promise for helping students than do earlier interventions.
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From page 7... ...
However, there is reason to believe that high-stakes testing at any level may sometimes be used in ways that have unintended harmful effects on students at particular risk for academic failure because of poverty, lack of proficiency in English, disability, and membership in population subgroups that have been educationally disadvantaged. Although the precise relationship between graduation testing and dropping out of school is still in dispute, it is clear that retention in grade is a very strong predictor of dropping out.
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