High stakes testing and distributive justice

Evaluation of high stakes testing regimes must consider not simply mean test scores, but their distribution among students. Taking high school graduation tests and black and white student populations to illustrate the argument, I identify two criteria of success: a larger proportion of black high school graduates and a narrower gap between the two groups. I evaluate various possible distributions against these criteria. I then consider the question of which students merit our focused attention, those students who are furthest behind or those with the greatest likelihood of passing the test given extra help. A medical triage analogy suggests we should help the former, but I show here that the analogy is misplaced.

Graduation tests and experiments

Little space in the Journal has been devoted in the past specifically to graduation tests, and nowhere have the tests generally applied been concisely set out and fully discussed. The only papers during the last forty years on the subject have been by Seal and Daw; both these papers were submitted and discussed during the war years, with the result that many actuaries were unable to be present and state their views; indeed, many of us did not even know of them until the numbers of the Journal in question were published, and an opportunity to study them did not arise until after the war.