In a recent paper, Reardon found that the relationship between family income and children's academic achievement grew substantially stronger in the 1980s and 1990s in the United States. We provide an international context for these results by examining the income-achievement association in 19 other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and…

The increasing use of state-mandated public high school exit exams is one manifestation of the current movement in U.S. public schooling toward more explicit standards of instruction and accountability. Exit exam requirements implicitly argue that raising the bar for graduation creates incentives both for students to work harder in school and for…

In this paper, the authors estimate the effect of a high school exit exam requirement (relative to no requirement) on students' academic achievement, persistence in high school, and graduation rates. They are particularly interested in the effects of the policy on the students who have low initial skill levels in high school. The study is based on…

In this policy brief the authors summarize the findings from a study investigating the impact of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) on California's lowest performing students. Utilizing longitudinal data from four large urban school districts, the authors compare students scheduled to graduate just before (2005) and after (2006-07) the…

This paper considers the effect of high stakes promotion tests on early high school dropout patterns. Analysis of data from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey of 1988, a nationally representative survey of 8th grade students in the United States, indicates that the presence of an 8th grade promotion test requirement is strongly…