High school exit exams

W. Norton Grubb
David Pierpont Gardner Professor in Higher Education and faculty coordinator of the Principal Leadership Institute
Office: (510) 642-3488
E-mail: wngrubb@berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Kathleen Maclay (510) 643-5651 kmaclay@berkeley.edu

Expertise: The role of schooling in labor markets, reforms in high schools and community colleges, the effects of institutional practices on teaching quality, the interactions among education and training programs, community colleges, and social policy toward children and youth. Grubb is author of "The Education Gospel: The Economic Power of Schooling."

While some 23 states have instituted high school graduation exams, a lawsuit has been filed to halt exit exams in California, where the tests are being given to nearly 450,000 seniors for the first time this year. The exit exam is "wrong headed," Grubb says, contending that its institution will increase the number of high school dropouts, who in turn will be hamstrung in the job market by their lack of a diploma. While high school graduation must rely upon a certain competencies, he says many important job skills are not measured or reflected by exams or grades.

In states that have implemented exit exams, more and more young students — who have dropped out or failed the tests — are ending up with the most unskilled and lowest-paying jobs, at risk of being "permanently poor," Grubb says. For those without a high school diploma, the second-chance mechanisms in the labor market and the education system — and particularly community colleges — do not work well, he adds.