Scratch Exit Exams; Think Much Bigger

In September, the Iowa GOP released three ideas for education reform. One is already being done, one is well-intentioned but impractical, and one is entirely sensible.

The first, setting core academic standards, is already being done. Iowa is part of a national collaboration between 49 states, the National Governors Association, and the Council of Chief State School Officers that is working on drafting a set of rigorous standards that states can voluntarily adopt. Iowa leaders will have that option soon, as a draft of the standards was recently released.

The second idea, developing standardized exams that high school students would be required to pass before graduating, is a good idea that's hard to implement well. The reasoning behind high school exit exams is sound: Too many students earn a high school diploma unprepared for college or a career, and a test would set a minimum bar that all graduates must meet. Twenty-four states will have something similar in place by 2015, but the evidence from early adopters is far from compelling.

High school graduation exams have been plagued by lawsuits and (rightful) skepticism that a single test can encompass enough of what students are supposed to have learned in four years of high school. It's also proven to be very difficult for states to determine how rigorous to make their tests.

In 2004, when Virginia introduced its exit examinations, fewer than 100 students out of 20,300 high school seniors in Northern Virginia were unable to graduate on time. Maryland introduced its high school exit exam this year and announced in September that only 11 out of 60,000 high school seniors were ineligible for a diploma because of the testing requirement. Nevada had to lower its bar, Texas made its test more difficult, Georgia publicly chose to keep an easier version, New York had to nullify one year of math tests, and Washington state officials were accused of manipulating pass rates to show improvement.

Other than the Washington example, it's impossible to say whether these are good or bad things. It's a positive when many students are able to meet thresholds set by state policymakers, but high pass rates suggest the standards are more or less meaningless. The tests, moreover, cost a lot of money. A national study estimated the cost of administering high school exit exams at between $171 and $557 per student. For the state of Iowa, that would mean an annual expense of $81 million to $265 million.

This is where the GOP's promising third recommendation comes in: A Parent and Taxpayer Right to Know Act would expand public disclosure requirements of school and district performance, a step that would be especially important for high school accountability. Two-thirds of high school graduates enroll in college the fall after graduation, and many are unprepared for the demands of college-level work. These students must take remedial math and English courses to learn content they were supposed to have mastered in high school. The remaining third of students will be going directly into the work force.

Instead of a test to measure this preparation, states should work to create college or career readiness indicators that measure the full impact of high schools' work. They should make that information public and grade schools on their ability to graduate students ready to be successful no matter where they go. Such measures will require better data collection, but would be based on outcomes that are driven by individual student motivation, and they would be relatively free of the challenges involved with standardized tests.