In this article, the author reports that sophomores who take the Washington Assessment of Student Learning this week will be the first who must pass the state exam to graduate. The long-awaited testing has caused anxiety across the state, as hopes that Washington will enter a new era of educational accountability are balanced by fears of turmoil…

The National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) has conducted four studies of state graduation requirements for students with disabilities. This document synthesizes findings reported in NCEO's most recent 2007 study, "Revisiting Graduation Requirements and Diploma Options for Youth with Disabilities: A National Study," and the…

This qualitative study examined the perceptions of educators and parents of the California High School (CAHSEE) requirements for students with disabilities. In the state of California, all seniors who graduate from a public high school are required the pass the CAHSEE in order to receive a high school diploma. This graduation requirement is a…

Since the late 1970s, an increasing number of states have required students to pass statewide high school exit examinations (HSEEs) in order to graduate. States have usually adopted HSEEs in response to the perception that a substantial number of graduates lack skills that are required for success in the modern economy. What do these educational…

Four dozen departments at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, are using faculty-developed exit examinations for majors as one component of a comprehensive program evaluation process. The experience of 11 program faculties in developing and using such examinations are summarized. (Author/MLW)

This document presents student work on the Science test which was completed as part of a Graduate Exit Exam (GEE) 21 assessment. The test is made up of forty multiple--choice items, four independent short?answer items, and one comprehensive science task. The science task consists of three short--answer items and one essay, all of which are based…

To ensure that exit exams are appropriately carried out regarding students with exceptionalities, it is the position of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) that: (1) No single test score should be used to make critical educational decisions for students with exceptionalities; (2) All students with exceptionalities must be given the…

Opposes the legislation of linguistic conformity by penalizing minority students who write in nonstandard dialect. (DD)

Introduction: The Junior Secondary Certificate Examination (JSCE) is a summative examination taken by candidates at the end (the third year) of Junior Secondary Education in Nigeria. The Examination is in two versions--(a) the one being conducted by the States' Ministries of Education (MOE) and (b) the Federal version being conducted by the…

This article investigates the extent to which state-mandated high school exit examinations are associated with state-level public high school completion rates in the United States. The authors estimate a series of state and year fixed effects models using a new measure of state-level public high school completion rates and archival information…

We present five frameworks for explaining which U.S. states adopted high school exit examination policies at particular points in time. The frameworks correspond to issues of academic achievement, education spending, economic conditions, racial/ethnic heterogeneity and policy diffusion. Using event history techniques we find that states with…

Racial and language minority students who must repeat high school exit exams are at increased risk of dropping out of school. Each time students fail an exit exam, they become less confident that they will ever pass and more unsure about their ability to graduate and their postsecondary plans. The relationship between students' culture and their…

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, recent guidance on access arrangements for students with special educational needs taking public examinations such as the end-of-school General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) has signalled a commitment to the development of access arrangements in line with "best practice". In this…

This report provides a roundup of the rather modest set of actions the state Legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger took on education in 2005. It also sets the stage for what those who care about education might expect in the coming year. To provide some structure for addressing a wide breadth of topics, the report is organized into four…

We examine whether school quality affects passing the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE), which is a standards-based high-stakes performance assessment. We use 3-level hierarchical logistic and linear models to examine student probabilities of passing the CAHSEE to take advantage of the availability of student, teacher, and school level…