Avoidable Losses: High-Stakes Accountability and the Dropout Crisis

Creator

Linda McSpadden McNeil
Eileen Coppola
Judy Radigan
Julian Vasquez Heilig

Files

Publisher

Arizona State University, University of South Florida

Publication Date

January 2008

Abstract

In the state of Texas, whose standardized, high-stakes test-based accountability system became the model for the nation’s most comprehensive federal education policy, more than 135,000 youth are lost from the state’s high schools every year. Dropout rates are highest for African American and Latino youth, more than 60% for the students we followed. Findings from this study, which included analysis of the accountability policy in operation in high-poverty high schools in a major urban district, analysis of student-level data for more than 271,000 students in that district over a seven-year period under this policy, and extensive ethnographic analysis of life in schools under the policy, show that the state’s high-stakes accountability system has a direct impact on the severity of the dropout problem.

Keywords

Prediction of dropout behavior, High school dropouts, High-stakes testing, Hispanic Americans; African Americans

Extent

48

Geographic Location

Texas

Volume

16

Issue

3

Language

English; Spanish

Media Type

Journals (Periodicals)

Format

Digital Only

Note

Citation: McNeil, L. M., Coppola, E., Radigan, J., & Vasquez Heilig, J. (2008). Avoidable losses: High-stakes accountability and the dropout crisis. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 16(3). Retrieved [date] from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v16n3/

Identifier

E11-00533

Recommended Citation

McNeil, Linda McSpadden; Coppola, Eileen; Radigan, Judy; and Heilig, Julian Vasquez, "Avoidable Losses: High-Stakes Accountability and the Dropout Crisis" (2008). Education Policy Analysis Archives (EPAA). 247.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/usf_EPAA/247