Chapter 1: International and Interstate Analyses of Student- and School-Targeted Accountability Policy Effects

Test-driven accountability has been the hallmark of education reform in many countries during the last two decades, and high-stakes testing has become the linchpin of this policy movement. The United States is one of the few developed countries without a high-stakes exit exam for high school students and it has been argued that as a result American students do not work as hard as their counterparts in higher-performing countries (Bishop, 2001; Tomlinson & Cross, 1991). With increasing concerns about poor student performance in the United States, the number of states that adopted student-targeted policies such as high school exit exams steadily increased during the 1990s. At the same time, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) pushed for school-targeted accountability policy in which state testing results were attached had serious consequences for schools and teachers.