Exit…To Prison?
Taken from Practical Homeschooling #111
State after state has been adding high-school exit exams. Now, almost half of all U.S. states require students to pass an exit exam… and if they don’t, their diploma is withheld.
But do exit exams hurt, or help?
A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, “The Effect of High School Exit Exams on Graduation, Employment, Wages and Incarceration,” says there is no correlation between passing (or failing) exit exams, and employment or salary. In addition, of the 1% who don’t pass, 12.5% end up in jail.
In a Take Part article about this new study, blog author and retired teacher Anthony Cody summed it up this way: “Exit exams represent a single set of tests that trumps years of work that students have completed.” He thinks they should be abolished.
You can purchase the report for $5 here: www.nber.org/papers/w19182.