Have State Accountability and High‐Stakes Tests Influenced Student Progression Rates in High School?

The question addressed in this paper is whether there are signs that students' progression through high school to graduation has been affected by the efforts to increase school accountability, including high‐stakes exit exams. If such accountability systems were able to raise student academic performance significantly in elementary and middle school, these same students should be more likely to succeed academically in high school and graduate with their cohort. If state accountability systems also attempt to raise minimum standards for high school graduation by requiring exit tests, as many do, this could have the opposite effect of lowering high school graduation rates by putting yet one more barrier in the way of lower‐performing students completing requirements.