The Myth of High-Stakes Testing
Fully half of the Class of 2006 at Lew Wallace High School, in the Rust Belt city of Gary, Indiana, graduated despite flunking the state’s Graduation Qualifying Exam repeatedly, which they are supposed to pass to graduate. Students had had five chances to pass, but the school ushered them out into the “real world” anyway.
The school was hardly an exception to some Iron Law that students don’t pass if they don’t pass the test. Five percent of the state’s graduates in 2006 donned cap-and-gown without ever passing the GQE. At 52 high schools, at least 10 percent of graduating seniors repeatedly flunked it
