The impact of high-stakes testing on student proficiency in low-stakes subjects: Evidence from Florida's elementary science exam

Marcus A. Winters, Julie R. Trivitt and Jay P. Greene

Economics of Education Review, 2010, vol. 29, issue 1, 138-146

Abstract: An important criticism of high-stakes testing policies - policies that reward or sanction schools based on their students' performance on standardized tests - is that they provide schools with an incentive to focus on those subjects that play a role in the accountability system while decreasing attention to those subjects that are not part of the program. This paper utilizes a regression discontinuity design to evaluate the impact of Florida's high-stakes testing policy on student proficiency in the low-stakes subject of science. We confirm prior results that students in schools facing more immediate sanctions under the policy made substantial gains in the high-stakes subjects of math and reading. Contrary to the crowding-out hypothesis, we find that students in these schools made substantial achievement gains in the low-stakes subject of science as well.

Keywords: Educational; economics; Human; capital; Productivity; High-stakes; testing; Accountability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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