High Stakes Testing and Graduation Success: an Analysis of 28 Years: Concepts, Quantitative Analysis, and Discussion of Results

High school graduation is an important accomplishment for young people; however, passing scores on high stakes tests are necessary for graduation. In this study, graduation success in Florida was examined, because Florida has the longest history of high stakes testing in the United States, spanning a period of 28 years, seven different testing policy periods, and five tests. The analysis suggested that declines in graduation success corresponded to increasingly difficult high stakes tests in the testing policy periods. Overall, graduation rates declined through an erratic 28 years. The achievement gap in graduation rates between white and black students worsened from 1992 to 2003. Univariate analysis of variance of the residual variation, obtained by removing the variation from demographics, indicated that changes in testing policies were significantly related to changes in graduation rates. Individual and societal losses when students fail to graduate from high school are important concerns to educators, students, parents, and citizens as they research, analyze, and synthesize policies to improve the chances of high school graduation success.