The Impact of High School Exit Exams on Graduation Rates and Achievement

Katherine Caves () and Simone Balestra ()
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Simone Balestra: University St. Gallen

No 123, Economics of Education Working Paper Series from University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW)

Abstract: In this paper, we examine the long-term effects of high school exit exams (HSEEs) on graduation rates and achievement using an interrupted time series approach. We find that introducing a HSEE has an overall positive effect on graduation rate trends, an effect which is heterogeneous over time. In the year of introduction and the following three years we find a negative impact of HSEE on graduation rates; this negative impact is short-lived and becomes positive over the long term.We perform robustness checks using states that do not have HSEEs as control group. We also estimate a pre-intervention negative effect, suggesting that high schools start preparing for the HSEE before its actual introduction. We find no effects for achievement, possibly due to the lack of meaningful cross-state achievement data in the time period studied.

Keywords: High school exit exams; graduation rates; achievement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2014-09
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iso:educat:0123

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