A Critical Review of Getting Tough The Impact of High School Graduation Exams

Richard Phelps

Nonpartisan Education Review, 2020, vol. 16, issue 4, 1-28

Abstract: The highly-praised and influential study, Getting Tough?, was published in 2001. Briefly, while controlling for a host of student, school, state, and educator background variables, the study regressed 1988 to 1992 student-level achievement score gains onto a dummy variable for the presence (or not) of a high school graduation test at the student’s school. The 1992-1988 difference in scores on the embedded cognitive test in a US Educational Department longitudinal survey comprised the gain scores. The study was praised for its methodology, controlling for multiple baseline variables which previous researchers allegedly had not, and by some opposed to high-stakes standardized testing for its finding of no achievement gains. Indeed, some characterized the work as so far superior in method it justified dismissing all previous work on the topic.

Keywords: education; policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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