LB 3060.33 .C35 R43 IGSL UCB - PACE Effects of the California High School Exit Exam on Student Persistence, Achievement, and Graduation Sean F. Reardon Stanford University Michal KUrIaender ‘ University of California, Davis Policy Brief 09—3 Sean F. Reardon is Associate Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Sociology at Stanford University. His research focuses on the‘causes, patterns, and consequences of social and educational inequality and the . effects of education policy. Michal Kurlaender is Assistant Professor of Education Policy at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on educational stratification at various stages of the education pipeline. lNSTITUTE OF GOVERNMENTAL STHD'CC 5 imam _3 r i? 7m? (’2) i flpl‘ylr UNlVERSlTY OF CALIFORNlA POLICY RIEF AUGUST 2009 “In order to significantly improve pupil achievement in high school and to ensure that pupils who graduate from high school can demonstrate grade level competency in reading, writing, and mathematics, the state must set higher standards for high school graduation.” California Senate Bill 2X, Section 1 (b), March 29, 1999 ive years ago, California joined the growing number of states requiring an exit exam for high school graduation. Beginning with the class of 2006, students in Cali- fornia are required to pass the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) to receive a diploma. In implementing a high school exit exam, the California legislature stated that students must be held accountable for meeting the state’s achievement standards. Exit exam scores also are utilized as part of the formula to determine whether high schools in Cali- fornia meet Adequate Yearly Progress requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act. Questions remain about whether exit exams meet their intended goals, partic- ularly the goal of raising student achieve— ment among low—performing students. This policy brief summarizes the results from a study of four large California school districts to evaluate the effects of the CAHSEE requirement on student outcomes. We compare persistence in high school, academic achievement, and graduation rates of students scheduled to graduate in 2005 —— who were not subject to the CAHSEE requirement — to similar students in two later cohorts, who were subject to the requirement. Executive Summary In this policy brief Sean Reardon and Michal Kurlaender summarize the findings from a study investigat— ing the impact of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) on Cali- fornia’s lowest performing students. Utilizing longitudinal data from four large urban school districts, the authors compare students sched— uled to graduatejust before (2005) and after (2006—07) the exit exam became a requirement for gradua- tion from California high schools. They find that the CAHSEE require- ment has had no positive effects on students’academic skills. Students subject to the CAHSEE require- ment—particularly low—achieving students whom the CAHSEE might have motivated to work harder in school—learned no more between 10th and 11th grade than similar students in the previous cohort who were not subject to the requirement. They also find that the introduc— tion of the CAHSEE requirement had a large negative impact on graduation rates for students in the bottom quartile of achievement, and that this impact was especially large for minority students and for girls. On average, graduation rates were 19 percentage points lower among bottom—quartile female students who were subject to the CAHSEE requirement, but only 12 points lower among male students. The graduation rate for minority continued on page 2 POLICY BRIEF PACE Executive Summary continued students in the bottom achievement quartile declined by 15 to 19 percent— age points after the introduction of the exit exam requirement, While the graduation rate for similar white stu- dents declined by only 1 percentage point. The analyses further suggest that the disproportionate effects of the CAHSEE requirement on gradua- tion rates are due to large racial and gender differences in CAHSEE pass- ing rates among students with the same level of achievement. Given that the CAHSEE has not met its intended goal of raising student achievement to meet the state’s grade-level standards, and that it appears to have disproportion- ately negative effects for female and minority students, the authors conclude that policymakers should reevaluate the utility of the CAHSEE in California's accountability system. We begin by reviewing the intended goals of high school exit exams and exist— ing research on their effects on student outcomes. We then present the study objectives, our analytic strategy, and our main findings. Finally, we discuss important implications from the results of this study and offer a set of policy recommendations. Background Today, nearly half of all states require stu- dents to pass an exam in order to gradu— ate from high school with a diploma. Such high stakes exams vary among states in their content and difficulty. Educators, policymakers, and scholars disagree about how such exams might influence student and school behaviors. On the one hand, some argue that a high school exit exam requirement will create incentives for schools to provide better instruction and for struggling students to work harder and learn needed skills before graduation. Supporters of exit exams also argue that such a requirement creates a common standard for high school graduation, making the diploma a clearer signal to employers about the academic skills of potential employees. On the other hand, some claim that exit exam requirements discourage some students (in particular, academically or socially disadvantaged students) from staying in school, which may lead to higher dropout rates and greater educa- tional inequality. Prior research on the effects of exit exams has been far from conclusive on these points. Most, but not all, studies have found that state high school exit exam requirements reduce high school graduation rates, particularly among low-achieving and disadvantaged stu- dents.1 The most methodologically rigorous recent studies have found that high school graduation rates decrease by roughly 1 to 2 percentage points, on aver— age, when states implement rigorous exit exams (Dee 8: Jacob, 2006; Warren et al., 2006). These effects tend to be concen- trated among black students and students in high-poverty schools. There is little prior evidence, however, on whether high school exit exam requirements lead to improved student achievement. Study Approach The goals of this study are to evaluate the effects of the CAHSEE require- ment on three student outcomes: persistence (whether students stay in EFFECTS OF THE CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL EXIT EXAM school through 11th and 12th grade), achievement (11th grade test scores), and graduation rates. We use longitudinal student-level data from four of California’s largest school districts, which collectively enroll roughly 110,000 high school students. Our analyses utilize data from three cohorts of students: those scheduled to graduate in 2005, 2006, and 2007. To investigate the effects of the exit exam requirement, we compare the average outcomes (persistence, achievement, and graduation) of students who were scheduled to graduate in 2005 and not subject to the CAHSEE graduation requirement with similar students in the following two cohorts who were subject to the CAHSEE requirement. We com- pare students with similar 8th, 9th, and 10th grade California Standards Test (CST) scores and similar demographic characteristics: gender, race or ethnicity, English Learner (EL) status, and free or reduced—price lunch eligibility. In particular, we focus on differences in outcomes among students in the bottom two quartiles of prior academic achieve- ment as measured by students’ 10th grade English Language Arts (ELA) scores on the California Standards Test (CST). We also investigate whether the CAHSEE policy has had a dispropor- tionate effect on students of different race/ ethnicity, gender, poverty status, and EL status. We conduct one additional test to inves- tigate the possibility that any differences in outcomes between the cohorts subject and not subject to the CAHSEE may result from something other than the CAHSEE requirement. For this test, we take advantage of the fact that students in the graduating class of 2005 took the FIGURE 1 12th Grade Persistence Rates, by Cohort and 10th Grade ELA CST Percentile FIGURE 2 11th Grade ELA CST Scores, by Cohort and 10th Grade ELA CST Percentile - - — Class of 2005 (not subject to CAHSEE) ‘ ---------------- Class of 2006 (subject to CAHSEE) Class of 2007 (subject to CAHSEE) ‘8 100% ’ (U a .. 45°. .1: 4“ N ’ ""‘I Y 2 s-» ,,— a“ g » 8”" 5 V g S .350 , C LIJ ': , 1% C . E - — — - Class of 2005 (not subject to CAHSEE) ‘ 5 , y g' ---------------- Class of 2006 (subject to CAHSEE) '2 25°- 33 .~ Class of 2007 (subject to CAHSEE) g, ' 40% f n I I ' 200:- ' § 0th 25th 50th 75th .. , 100th 0th 22’. Percentile of 10th Grade ELA CST (in State) 3 CAHSEE exam in 10th grade (in spring Main Findings 2003) in the belief that passing CAHSEE was a requirement for graduation, just as the classes of 2006 and 2007 would subsequently do. In the summer of 2003, however, the state decided to delay the requirement that students pass the CAH- SEE until the class of 2006. This policy change allows us to com- pare trends in student outcomes for students who passed the CAHSEE in 10th grade with those for students who failed the CAHSEE in 10th grade across our three cohorts of students. If the observed trends are due to something other than the CAHSEE, we would expect them to be the same for students who passed and students who failed. If the trends are due to the CAHSEE requirement, however, we would expect to observe differences in outcomes between cohorts only for students who failed the exam in 10th grade, because the CAHSEE has no effect on incentives to work harder or less hard for students who pass it on their first attempt. This test allows us to determine whether any changes that we observe in student out- comes can be attributed to the CAHSEE requirement. Persistence Rates Low—achieving students subject to the CAHSEE requirement had slightly lower rates of persistence in high school (as measured by the percentage of students remaining in school in their original district) relative to similar students not subject to the requirement.2 This is illus— trated in Figure 1, which shows average persistence rates through 12th grade (plotted on the y—axis) as a function of students’ statewide rank on the 10th grade ELA CST test (plotted on the X—axis). For ease of interpretation, we use CST per— centile rankings as opposed to raw scores on the test metric. Although the patterns in Figure 1 are not adjusted for students’ prior test scores or demographic char- acteristics, the patterns are substantively similar when we include the full set of control variables in a regression model. In particular, our regression models indicate that, on average, persistence rates through 1 1th grade were 2 percentage points lower among bottom—quartile students and 1 percentage point lower among second quartile students who were subject to the CAHSEE requirement than among similar students who were not. Persistence rates through 12th grade were 4 percent- age points lower among bottom-quartile EFFECTS OF THE CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL EXIT EXAM 25th 50th ‘ ‘ 75m" .10th Percentile of 10thGrade ELA CST (in State) students and 2 percentage points lower among second quartile students who were subject to the CAHSEE requirement than among those who were not. There were no significant differences in persistence rates among students in the upper achievement quartiles. Despite the fact that there are modest dif— ferences evident in persistence between the cohorts of students subject and not subject to the CAHSEE requirement, the results from our final set of analyses show that persistence rates among low- achieving students declined even for those who passed the CAHSEE in 10th grade, suggesting that we cannot be sure that these differences are attributable to the CAHSEE requirement. Achievement Differences There is no evidence that students subject to the CAHSEE requirement learned more between 10th and 11th grade than those who were not subject to the requirement. On average, scores on the 11th grade ELA CST test (the ELA test that all students take for school account- ability purposes) were slightly lower among students subject to the CAHSEE requirement than among similar stu- dents not subject to the requirement (see Figure 2). Again, we cannot be certain POLICY BRIEF PACE this decline is a result of the CAHSEE requirement, because we observe the same decline among those who passed and failed the CAHSEE exam in 10th grade. Still, there is no evidence that the CAHSEE requirement improved perfor- mance on 11th grade ELA CST tests. Graduation Rates Low—achieving students subject to the CAHSEE requirement have substantially lower graduation rates than similar stu- dents not subject to the CAHSEE (see Figure 3). On average, graduation rates (the percentage of students receiving a diploma on time from their original district) were 15 percentage points lower among bottom-quartile students and 3 percentage points lower among second quartile students who were subject to the CAHSEE requirement than among similar students who were not. In the cohort of students not subject to the requirement, a typical student in the bot— tom quartile of 10th grade achievement had a roughly 50 percent probability of graduating from his or her original district. In the cohorts subject to the requirement, the same student had a 35 percent probability of graduation. We estimate that the CAHSEE requirement caused at least 11 percentage points of the decline in graduation rates, and perhaps as much as 15 percentage points. These figures imply that roughly 3.6-4.5 per— cent of California high school students (roughly 18,000-22,500 students per year) do not graduate as a result of the high school exit exam policy. Differential Impacts of the CAHSEE Requirement The negative effects of the CAHSEE requirement on graduation rates fall FIGURE 3 Graduation Rates, by Cohort and 10th Grade ELA CST Percentile § as on 0 2? Percentage Graduating § \ \ \ \ \ ’ 40% , é - — - Classof2005(notsubjecttoCAHSEE) 209‘" ---------------- Class of2006 (subjectto CAHSEE) ‘_ Class of 2007 (subject to CAHSEE) disproportionately on minority students and female students. These differential impacts are evident even when we con- trol for students’ achievement on 8th, 9th, and 10th grade math and reading tests and students’ demographic charac- teristics (free/reduced-price lunch eligi— bility and EL status). Among students in the lowest quartile of achievement, the CAHSEE requirement has no effect on the graduation rate of white students, but it has a large negative effect on gradua— tion rates of black, Hispanic, and Asian 7 zsih 50th 7sth 100th Percentile of 10th Grade ELA CST (in State) students. On average, among students in the bottom quartile of achievement, graduation rates were 19 percentage points lower among black students, 15 points lower among Hispanic students, and 18 points lower among Asian stu- dents who were subject to the CAHSEE requirement than among similar students not subject to the requirement (see Fig- ure 4). Likewise, graduation rates were 19 percentage points lower among bottom- quartile female students, but only 12 points lower among male students who FIGURE 4 Percentage of Bottom Quartile Students Graduating, by CAHSEE Requirement 70 O o I Percentage Graduating N U) J> U1 0" ‘f 0— 0... 10—' Ofi All White Students Black Hispanic Asian Male Female I Class of ZOOSTPr/e-CAHSEE) \- Classes of 2006 ‘& 2007 (Post-CAHSEE) Source: Reardon et al (2009) Effects of the California High School Exit Exam on Student Persistence, Achievement, and Graduation. EFFECTS OF THE CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL EXIT EXAM were subject to the CAHSEE require- ment than among similar students not subject to the requirement. There are no significant differences in CAHSEE effects on any of our three outcomes (persistence, achievement, and graduation) when comparing English Learners with non—English Learners, controlling for race/ethnicity, gender, free/reduced—price lunch eligibility and prior academic achievement. Similarly, we find no significant differences in CAHSEE effects when comparing stu- dents with and without free/reduced- price lunch eligibility, controlling for race/ethnicity, gender, EL status, and prior academic achievement. It is also important to note that we do not find significant differences by race/ethnic— ity or gender for other outcomes (i.e., achievement and persistence in the 11th and 12th grade years). Finally, our find— ings reveal no sizeable differences among the four districts. Investigating the Differential Effects by Race and Gender We explore several plausible explanations for the differential effect of the CAHSEE requirement on graduation rates by race/ethnicity and gender. First, we ask whether the race/ethnic differences in effects may be due to differences in the racial and ethnic makeup of schools and their relative effectiveness at ensuring that students with low academic skills in 10th grade pass the CAHSEE and graduate. Our analyses do not support this proposition. Large racial/ethnic differences in the effects of the CAH— SEE are evident even when we compare students within the same schools, sug- gesting that it is not differences in school quality that primarily account for the racial/ ethnic differences in the effects of the CAHSEE. Moreover, school effects would not explain the differential effects by gender. Our analyses suggest that the dispropor- tionate effects of the CAHSEE require— ment on graduation rates appear to be due to large racial and gender differences in CAHSEE passing rates among students with the same prior and current levels of achievement. Minority students perform less well on the CAHSEE exam in 10th grade than do white students with the same level of academic achievement as measured by 8th, 9th, and 10th grade performance on the California Standards Tests. Female students perform less well on the math CAHSEE test than do boys with the same level of academic achievement. The reasons for this underperformance by minority students and female students are not clear, however. The developers of the test find no evidence of bias in the test itself. Differential item functioning tests were used to identify items that minority or female students answered correctly less often than white or male students with the same level of skill as measured by all other items on the test, and such items were eliminated (Wise et al., 2000). It may be that minority students and female students experience more stress or anxiety in high-stakes testing situa- tions than do white and male students, but our data do not allow us to directly test this hypothesis. Limitations There are some important limitations to our study. First, although our sample includes four of California’s largest school districts, it is not representative of the state. It is quite possible that the exit exam has different effects in more suburban or rural settings. Our results are, however, consistent with statewide trends: throughout California, gradua- tion rates declined by 4 percent from the class of 2005 to the class of 2006, while we estimate that 3.6-4.5 percent of students in a cohort fail to graduate as a result of the CAHSEE exam. Second, our study captures the effect of the exit exam in the first two years after CAHSEE was implemented. It is possible that CAHSEE effects have changed as students and districts have grown more familiar with the policy and the exam. It is also possible that other factors have changed in California during the time period we observe that may also have affected the graduation rates of low- achieving students independently of the CAHSEE requirement. Such factors, however, would have to specifically affect minority students who fail the CAHSEE exam but not those who pass it. Given the specificity of the patterns we observe, the CAHSEE requirement is the most likely cause of the changes in graduation rates between the classes of 2005 and 2006. Summary & Implications ' The stated rationale for the CAHSEE exam is the desire to make sure that Cali— fornia students are held to “high stan- dards,” in order to ensure that students have “competency in reading, writing, and mathematics,” (California Senate Bill 2X, 1999). Few would disagree with this goal. But the real test of a policy should not be its stated intention, but the evidence of its effectiveness at achieving that intention. When held to that stan- dard, the CAHSEE policy appears to have failed, at least for the first cohorts who were subject to it. EFFECTS OF THE CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL EXIT EXAM POLICY BRIEF PACE Our results show that among students with low academic achievement, the CAHSEE requirement has had no posi- tive effects (and likely a negative effect) on students’ academic skills. Moreover, the requirement has had a large negative impact on graduation rates. The negative effect of the CAHSEE requirement on graduation falls disproportionately on minority students and on female stu— dents. Our estimates suggest that 3.6-4.5 percent of all high school students fail to receive a diploma as a result of the exit exam requirement. Given enroll- ments of roughly 500,000 10th grade students per cohort in California, this implies that there are between 18,000 and 22,500 students per year who fail to receive diplomas who would have received them had the exit exam not been required. The great majority of the students who fail to receive a diploma as a result of the exit exam are students of color. In addition, the negative effect of the exit exam on graduation rates was almost twice as large for girls as for boys. These differential effects are particularly troubling. Our findings raise important questions about the usefulness of exit exams as a method to improve student outcomes. If the goal of high school exit exams is to improve the academic performance of low-achieving students, there is no evidence the California high school exit exam has succeeded in this, at least for the first two cohorts subject to the exam. If however, the goal of the high school exit exam is to ensure that a high school diploma means something —— that it sig- nals to potential employers that graduates have a certain level of basic skills — then reducing the number of students receiv- ing diplomas, at least in the short term, may be a necessary by-product of such a policy. In order to accept this rationale, however, it is essential that the exit exam provide an unbiased signal of students’ skills, regardless of their race or gender. If it takes a higher level of skill for minority and female students to pass a test than it does for white and male students (as our analyses suggest), then the test cannot be said to convey a fair signal of students’ levels of basic skills. This study provides no evidence that the CAHSEE exam policy as currently implemented has any benefits for stu— dents. It does not serve students well, and it appears to have sharply inequi- table effects. Moreover, California, like the 20—plus other states with exit exam policies, spends millions of dollars and a considerable amount of instructional time on exit exam test preparation, administration, and remediation. Our analysis suggests that, to date, this has been neither money nor time well spent. Policy Recommendations I Revaluate the utility of the high school exit exam as part of California’s accountability system The results from our analysis suggest that the CAHSEE has not met its intended goal of raising student achievement to meet the state’s grade—level standards. Moreover, the disproportionate negative effects on female and minority students suggest that CAHSEE’s assessment of basic skills is not a fair one. If exit exam policies like Califor— nia’s are to be retained, it is imperative that they be accompanied by serious efforts to improve student achievement and to ame- liorate their disproportionately negative effects on minority students and girls. a EFFECTS OF THE CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL EXIT EXAM I Target Resources Early The state should target resources toward improving low-achieving students’ academic skills prior to the 10th grade. Previous work in these districts and elsewhere has demonstrated that stu— dents’ performance in middle school (and even earlier) is a strong predictor of CAHSEE passing rates (see Kur- laender, Reardon and Jackson, 2008; Zau and Betts, 2008). It would therefore be sensible to allow districts to utilize CAHSEE remediation funds for earlier intervention. In particular, a compen- satory allocation of resources (such as these remediation funds) toward minor- ity and female students at risk of failing CAHSEE is necessary to address existing gaps in initial passing rates. The state can allocate funds to support promis- ing interventions aimed at improving CAHSEE performance for minority and female students. I Set aside a small portion of the CAHSEE funds for evaluating interventions targeted at improving success of low-achieving students on the CAHSEE We know racial/ ethnic and gender gaps in CAHSEE outcomes exist, even con— trolling for prior and contemporaneous academic skill, but we don’t know what works to reduce such gaps. It is critical to set aside a small part of the CAH- SEE funds for evaluating interventions targeted at improving success for low- achieving students on the CAHSEE. Thus, both innovation in interventions and evaluation of such interventions is needed to realize the state’s ultimate goal of raising all students’ academic skills. U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES lIIIIIIIIIIII Clllflbl-l'FIBB About CAHSEE In March 1999, the California State Legislature passed Senate Bill 2X, requiring all school districts to administer a high school exit exam and provide supplemental instruction to those students who do not demonstrate sufficient progress toward passing the exam. The CAH— SEE is a two-part examination of mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) skills. The math section assesses students’ mastery of the California math content standards for sixth and seventh grade and their Algebra I skills using a multiple-choice format. The ELA section is aligned with state content standards through grade 10 and utilizes a multiple-choice format and an essay. Both the math and ELA sections are scored on a scale from 275 to 450, and students must score at least 350 points on each part to pass the exam and earn a high school diploma. The test is first administered to stu- dents in the spring of tenth grade, and students have at least five subsequent opportunities to retake the sections they do not pass (twice each in eleventh grade and twelfth grade, and at least once following the end of the twelfth grade school year). Because students are told their exact score, not simply whether they passed or failed, students who fail have some sense of how close they came to scoring the 350 points they need to meet the CAHSEE requirement. Although some students who were scheduled to graduate prior to 2006 took the CAHSEE in 2001, 2002, and 2003 (as 10th graders), they were not required to pass the test to graduate. The first class for whom the CAHSEE require- ment was binding was the graduating class of 2006, who first took the test in 10th grade, in spring 2004, at which time they knew it to be a graduation requirement. For additional background information about the CAHSEE see: The California High School Exit Exam Gets Real, EdSource (available at: http: //www.edsource. org/pub_CAHSEE2—06.html). Endnotes Several studies using individual-level data from nationally representative samples (mostly from cohorts of students graduating high school in the early 1990s) found that state high school exit exams increase high school dropout rates among low-achieving students (Bishop 8: Mane, 2001; Jacob, 2001) and among black males (Dee & Jacob, 2006), though one similar study found no such effects (Warren 8r Edwards, 2005). In contrast, a set of studies utilizing state data to examine the relationship between exit exam policies and state-level graduation rates provides mixed evidence, with some studies reporting negative associations between exit exam policies and graduation rates (Amrein 8r Berliner, 2002; Marchant 8t Paulson, 2005) and other reporting no association (Carnoy 8r Loeb, 2002; Greene 8: Winters, 2004; Warren 8t Jenkins, 2005). Although we cannot directly determine whether students have dropped out of high school— because students who leave a given district prior to graduation may be dropouts or may have left and enrolled elsewhere — we can identify whether students are present in the district one and two years after first taking the CAHSEE. Because the CAHSEE requirement is unlikely to induce students to transfer among public school districts (they would be subject to the same requirement at any public school in the state), we interpret differences in persistence rates within districts as dropout effects. References Amrein, A. L. St Berliner, DC. (2002). High-stakes testing, uncertainty, and student learning. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 10(18). Bishop, J. H., & Mane, F. (2001). The impacts of minimum competency exam graduation require- ments on high school graduation, college attendance and early labor market success. Labour Economics, 8(2), 203-222. Carnoy, M. 8r Loeb, S. (2002), Does external accountability affect student outcomes? A cross-state analysis, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24: 305-331. Dee, T. 8., 8: Jacob, B. A. (2006). Do High School Exit Exams Influence Educational Attainment or Labor Market Performance? (Working Paper). Greene, J. P., 81 Winters, M. A.. 2004. Competition Passes the Test. Education Next, 4(3): 66—71. Jacob, B. A. (2001). Getting tough? The impact of high school graduation exams. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23(2), 99-121. Kurlaender, M., Reardon, 8., 8r Jackson, J. (2008). Middle School Predictors of High School Achieve- ment in Three California School Districts. A Report Released by the California Dropout Research Project. Available at: http:/lcdrp.ucsb.edu/ Marchant, G. J. 8: Paulson, S. E. (2005, January 21). The relationship of high school graduation exams to graduation rates and SAT scores. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 13(6). Reardon, S. E, Atteberry, A., Arshan, N., 81 Kurlaender, M. (2009). Efiects of the California High School Exit Exam on Student Persistence, Achievement, and Graduation. Working paper #2009- 12. Institute for Research on Education Policy and Practice, Stanford University. http:/ltinyurl. com/cahsee-report-2009. Warren, J. R., & Edwards, M. R. (2005). High School Exit Examinations and High School Completion: Evidence From the Early 19905. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 27(1), 53-74. Warren, J. R., Jenkins, K. N., St Kulick, R. B. (2006). High School Exit Examinations and State—Level Completion and GED Rates, 1972-2002. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 28(2). Zau, A. 8r Betts, J. (2008). Predicting Success, Preventing Failure: An Investigation of the California High School Exit Exam, A Report of the Public Policy Institute of California. Available at: http:// www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_608AZR.pdf. EFFECTS OF THE CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL EXIT EXAM A POLICY BRIEF PACE Policy Analysis for California Education University of California 3653 Tolman Hall Berkeley, CA 94720 http: //pace.berkeley.edu Stanford University 520 Galvez Mall, 5th Floor Stanford, CA 94305 University of Southern California Waite Phillips Hall 3470 Trousdale Parkway Los Angeles, CA 90089 e would like to thank the James Irvine Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for financial support for the publication of this policy brief. The Views expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the Views of PACE or its funders. Recent PACE Publications Heather J. Hough. The Quality Teacher and Education Act in San Francisco: Lessons Learned. Policy Brief 09—2, May 2009. Heather J. Hough, and Susanna Loeb. The Development of a Teacher Salary Parcel Tax: The Quality Teacher and Education Act in San Francisco. May 2009. Julia E. Koppich, and Jessica Rigby. 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