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The Myth of Achievement Tests: The GED and the Role of Character in American Life
Achievement tests play an important role in modern societies. They are used to evaluate schools, to assign students to tracks within schools, and to identify weaknesses in student knowledge. The GED is an achievement test used to grant the status of high school graduate to anyone who passes it. GED recipients currently account for 12 percent of all high school credentials issued each year in the United States. But do achievement tests predict success in life?
The Myth of Achievement Tests shows that achievement tests like the GED fail to measure important life skills. James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, Tim Kautz, and a group of scholars offer an in-depth exploration of how the GED came to be used throughout the United States and why our reliance on it is dangerous. Drawing on decades of research, the authors show that, while GED recipients score as well on achievement tests as high school graduates who do not enroll in college, high school graduates vastly outperform GED recipients in terms of their earnings, employment opportunities, educational attainment, and health. The authors show that the differences in success between GED recipients and high school graduates are driven by character skills. Achievement tests like the GED do not adequately capture character skills like conscientiousness, perseverance, sociability, and curiosity. These skills are important in predicting a variety of life outcomes. They can be measured, and they can be taught.
Using the GED as a case study , the authors explore what achievement tests miss and show the dangers of an educational system based on them. They call for a return to an emphasis on character in our schools, our systems of accountability, and our national dialogue.
Contributors
Eric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Andrew Halpern-Manners, Indiana University Bloomington
Paul A. LaFontaine, Federal Communications Commission
Janice H. Laurence, Temple University
Lois M. Quinn, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Pedro L. Rodríguez, Institute of Advanced Studies in Administration
John Robert Warren, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
The Myth of Achievement Tests shows that achievement tests like the GED fail to measure important life skills. James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, Tim Kautz, and a group of scholars offer an in-depth exploration of how the GED came to be used throughout the United States and why our reliance on it is dangerous. Drawing on decades of research, the authors show that, while GED recipients score as well on achievement tests as high school graduates who do not enroll in college, high school graduates vastly outperform GED recipients in terms of their earnings, employment opportunities, educational attainment, and health. The authors show that the differences in success between GED recipients and high school graduates are driven by character skills. Achievement tests like the GED do not adequately capture character skills like conscientiousness, perseverance, sociability, and curiosity. These skills are important in predicting a variety of life outcomes. They can be measured, and they can be taught.
Using the GED as a case study , the authors explore what achievement tests miss and show the dangers of an educational system based on them. They call for a return to an emphasis on character in our schools, our systems of accountability, and our national dialogue.
Contributors
Eric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Andrew Halpern-Manners, Indiana University Bloomington
Paul A. LaFontaine, Federal Communications Commission
Janice H. Laurence, Temple University
Lois M. Quinn, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Pedro L. Rodríguez, Institute of Advanced Studies in Administration
John Robert Warren, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
472 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
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January 15, 2017
This is a book by a Nobel prize winning economist about education and testing. While it has an integrity as a separate book, it is a compilation of a program of research that the author and his colleagues have been involved in for a long time.
Heckman and his colleagues evaluate the GED program, which is best known for producing the most common form of high school equivalency credential. They examine what GED testing is supposed to accomplish and the extent to which it is successful. They also look for other consequences of the testing that might not have been intended by its developers. They find that the GED credential is not very successful as an alternative credential to a high school diploma. Its holders do not know as much as high school graduates and do not perform comparably to traditional high school graduates in employment or earnings (as well as lots of other measures) both in the short and long term. Instead, the GED holders perform comparably to high school dropouts generallly across the board (although there are a few exceptions).
Millions of people obtain GED certification. The studies in this book call into question the wisdom of their doing so. At a time when middle skill jobs are going away via automation or globalization, the results in this book raise troubling questions of policy as well. If the GED is not really a viable alternative to a diploma, then national statistics assuming that it is must be reevaluated and the US will be seen as having far fewer HS grads than before.. Efforts of well meaning (and some not so well meaning) administrators to impose enhanced quality requirements on HS graduates through high stakes exit exam may also have the unintended consequences of driving more students out of the educational system by way of easy access to the GED and related programs. This does not negate the value of higher standards but does force a consideration of the range of costs from such programs.
More generally, the book constructively raises issues about the role of achievement testing in educational systems. Are achievement tests solely or primarily meant to capture cognitive development and learning or is it also meant to predict how individuals will succeed once they leave education and enter the workforce. I am convinced that the validation of achievement tests in terms of how people perform after leaving school is an important and often left out part of the testing program, especially as it has developed in recent years. Heckman's book raises these and related issues in discussions that alone would justify the volume.
This raises perhaps the most challenging (and most controversial) part of the arguments of Heckman and his colleagues. They find that the GED not only fails as an alternative to the diploma in terms of substantive knowledge but also fails to take into account non-academic aspects of individuals that do get taken into account with high school graduates. This is what he refers to as character. The idea is that there are also personal skills (and the argument is that they are skills rather than traits) that can be learned and that are important for life success. Some might talke about this in terms of personality while a more common name today would be "soft skills". Does someone know how to work with other people? Can they complete tasks that they have signed on to perform? Do they show up for work (and show up on time)? Do they work well with authority or in groups? (... you can get the idea of where he is going). In its simplest form, the argument is that completing high school successfully is evidence that graduates possess these life skills to a greater degree than those who fail to graduate. (Of course there are exceptions and the claim is a general one!)
When I first encountered Heckman's work on the GED, I had reservations about his use of "character" but I understand what he is saying and generally agree. This is not an attempt to slip one particular ideology into a discussion of national testing. While some might not agree with Heckman, he is very forthcoming about what he is doing - and his claims are testable. The book also provides a wonderful review of prior research about what is meant by character and how it compares with other treatments of these issues.
With no disrespect intended to any particular researchers, education research has not gotten the same respect as has research on other areas of social life. One can see that in current educational debates, which often come across as highly ideological, such that what passes for research does not end up being persuasive and can often furnish argumentative fodder for opposing sides of a debate. "Good" research has the quality that it is well designed - meaning that every reasonable step has been taken to demonstrate how a study answers a set of questions and ensure that alternative explanations for findings have been ruled out. Good research does not depend on whether I agree with one position or another but on whether a particular case has been well or poorly made with the data at hand and the research design employed. This is very hard to do well. Heckman is one of the best econometricians working today and his book is a wonderful example of a well designed and very persuasive research program that addresses important issues well.
In terms of style, the book's chapters are academic peer reviewed papers that have been worked up into book chapters. That the chapters started out as separate papers means that reader will see the general argument of the book repeated in multiple chapters. The chapters are also fairly technical, with lots of statistics, tables, and graphs. Caveat emptor for those readers not comfortable with such details. The book is also a bit of a slog stylistically, although for an academic volume it is fairly good.
Heckman and his colleagues evaluate the GED program, which is best known for producing the most common form of high school equivalency credential. They examine what GED testing is supposed to accomplish and the extent to which it is successful. They also look for other consequences of the testing that might not have been intended by its developers. They find that the GED credential is not very successful as an alternative credential to a high school diploma. Its holders do not know as much as high school graduates and do not perform comparably to traditional high school graduates in employment or earnings (as well as lots of other measures) both in the short and long term. Instead, the GED holders perform comparably to high school dropouts generallly across the board (although there are a few exceptions).
Millions of people obtain GED certification. The studies in this book call into question the wisdom of their doing so. At a time when middle skill jobs are going away via automation or globalization, the results in this book raise troubling questions of policy as well. If the GED is not really a viable alternative to a diploma, then national statistics assuming that it is must be reevaluated and the US will be seen as having far fewer HS grads than before.. Efforts of well meaning (and some not so well meaning) administrators to impose enhanced quality requirements on HS graduates through high stakes exit exam may also have the unintended consequences of driving more students out of the educational system by way of easy access to the GED and related programs. This does not negate the value of higher standards but does force a consideration of the range of costs from such programs.
More generally, the book constructively raises issues about the role of achievement testing in educational systems. Are achievement tests solely or primarily meant to capture cognitive development and learning or is it also meant to predict how individuals will succeed once they leave education and enter the workforce. I am convinced that the validation of achievement tests in terms of how people perform after leaving school is an important and often left out part of the testing program, especially as it has developed in recent years. Heckman's book raises these and related issues in discussions that alone would justify the volume.
This raises perhaps the most challenging (and most controversial) part of the arguments of Heckman and his colleagues. They find that the GED not only fails as an alternative to the diploma in terms of substantive knowledge but also fails to take into account non-academic aspects of individuals that do get taken into account with high school graduates. This is what he refers to as character. The idea is that there are also personal skills (and the argument is that they are skills rather than traits) that can be learned and that are important for life success. Some might talke about this in terms of personality while a more common name today would be "soft skills". Does someone know how to work with other people? Can they complete tasks that they have signed on to perform? Do they show up for work (and show up on time)? Do they work well with authority or in groups? (... you can get the idea of where he is going). In its simplest form, the argument is that completing high school successfully is evidence that graduates possess these life skills to a greater degree than those who fail to graduate. (Of course there are exceptions and the claim is a general one!)
When I first encountered Heckman's work on the GED, I had reservations about his use of "character" but I understand what he is saying and generally agree. This is not an attempt to slip one particular ideology into a discussion of national testing. While some might not agree with Heckman, he is very forthcoming about what he is doing - and his claims are testable. The book also provides a wonderful review of prior research about what is meant by character and how it compares with other treatments of these issues.
With no disrespect intended to any particular researchers, education research has not gotten the same respect as has research on other areas of social life. One can see that in current educational debates, which often come across as highly ideological, such that what passes for research does not end up being persuasive and can often furnish argumentative fodder for opposing sides of a debate. "Good" research has the quality that it is well designed - meaning that every reasonable step has been taken to demonstrate how a study answers a set of questions and ensure that alternative explanations for findings have been ruled out. Good research does not depend on whether I agree with one position or another but on whether a particular case has been well or poorly made with the data at hand and the research design employed. This is very hard to do well. Heckman is one of the best econometricians working today and his book is a wonderful example of a well designed and very persuasive research program that addresses important issues well.
In terms of style, the book's chapters are academic peer reviewed papers that have been worked up into book chapters. That the chapters started out as separate papers means that reader will see the general argument of the book repeated in multiple chapters. The chapters are also fairly technical, with lots of statistics, tables, and graphs. Caveat emptor for those readers not comfortable with such details. The book is also a bit of a slog stylistically, although for an academic volume it is fairly good.
January 22, 2015
This is a terrific read for those involved with teens through the schools, juvenile justice or a community-based agency. I found myself rereading parts and taking notes often. The one comment that stuck with me was: if you count the GED recipient as a dropout rather than a graduate then there has been little, if any, improvement in the graduation rate for African-American youth in the last 50 years. Essentially, the authors posit that the GED recipient is similar to the high school dropout in a number of factors including earnings.
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