Cover of The Myth of Achievement Tests
The Myth of Achievement Tests The GED and the Role of Character in American Life
edited by James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries and Tim Kautz
University of Chicago Press, 2013
Cloth: 978-0-226-10009-8 | Paper: 978-0-226-32480-7 | Electronic: 978-0-226-10012-8
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226100128.001.0001

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ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

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

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

James J. Heckman is a Nobel Prize–winning economist and the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. He is the director of the Economics Research Center at the University of Chicago and codirector of the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group, an initiative of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and the Becker-Friedman Institute. John Eric Humphries is a National Science Foundation graduate research fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. Tim Kautz is a PhD candidate in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago and the recipient of a National Science Foundation fellowship.

REVIEWS

“Essential. . . . An insightful, balanced, comprehensive, and critical examination of a test that many proponents of standardized tests overlook. . . . The work questions how the GED is granted equivalent status to a high school diploma and examines how faith in standardized tests is sometimes misplaced.”
— Choice

“More than a meticulous work of social science, [The Myth of Achievement Tests] is also is an objective, but hard-hitting, analysis of the testing that has driven school reform, and a warning about the unintended harm done by ill-conceived policies. . . . A book this important should be read by everyone, not just those who will give it the multiple close readings that its prose requires.”
— John Thompson, At the Chalk Face

"For decades, the creators of the GED program have promoted it as a second chance for high school dropouts. . . . As promising as that sounds, the GED program is actually failing many of the students it purports to help, argues The Myth of Achievement Tests. . . . While the authors are quick to note that some have benefited from the test, they contend the GED alone isn't enough. Although those taking the test score roughly the same as high school graduates who didn't go on to college, many lack what are referred to as 'character skills,' such as persistence, motivation and reliability."
— Chicago Tribune

“Every American interested in our most valuable asset—our children—should read The Myth of Achievement Tests. Education reform, as a national enterprise, has lacked a coherent, organized agenda. Heckman and colleagues suggest that the central feature of any nationwide education reform agenda is an understanding of the importance of character to lifelong success. The research in this book can edify education reform, providing the base for a national enterprise that is coherent and organized.”
— Richard Boyle, president and CEO, ECMC Foundation

"Remarkable. A display of technical virtuosity in the service of an ambitious agenda: restoring character to the heart of US education policy. Analyzing the ‘natural experiment’ of the GED program, Heckman and his team show that it is lack of character, rather than lack of academic skill, that hobbles life chances today. Everybody interested in education, social mobility, and inequality has to read this book: anyone interested in the future of America ought to."
— Richard V. Reeves, Brookings Institution

“A masterful synthesis of the research literature on the cognitive and character skills central to successfully navigating both school and life.”
— Angela Lee Duckworth, University of Pennsylvania

“With The Myth of Achievement Tests, James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, and Tim Kautz have offered a wealth of insightful analysis and brought together a number of topics often treated separately to inform a comprehensive discussion of the growth, character, and impact of the GED that is truly monumental. This is a first-rate book.”
— Eric A. Hanushek, Stanford University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

- James J. Heckman, Tim Kautz
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226100128.003.0001
[Overview, Character, Achievement Tests, Main Argument]
This chapter summarizes the main findings presented in this book. It discusses the GED test and its origin in the modern achievement test. It summarizes the large body of evidence, some of it original to this book, showing that GED certifiers perform far worse than ordinary high school graduates and slightly above the level of other dropouts. Accounting for their greater ability, they perform at the level of other dropouts. GEDs lack important character skills valued in the labor market, in school and in society at large. Character skills are defined and the early life origins of character and cognitive deficits are discussed. Factors promoting the growth of the GED program despite the ineffectiveness of the GED credential are summarized. Interventions to promote character are briefly surveyed, anticipating the extensive analysis of Chapter 9. (pages 3 - 54)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- Lois M. Quinn
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226100128.003.0002
[History, Ralph Tyler, E.F. Lindquist, American Council on Education, General Education, Carnegie Unit, Veterans]
This chapter provides a history of the GED test from its inception in 1943 as a college placement exam for wounded World War II veterans and later as a requirement for GIs to meet before receiving wartime high school diplomas. Ralph Tyler of the University of Chicago, E. F. Lindquist of the University of Iowa, and others associated with the American Council on Education promoted the test as part of their largely unsuccessful efforts to introduce “general education” curricula into the high schools and to end the dominance of the Carnegie unit system. Since the 1960s decisions were made to lower the test's reading levels, market the GED for school age youth, and distance the GED's emphasis away from the academic regimen and character skills required of traditional graduates. Government funding supports GED test-prep instruction as a substitute to high school attendance and coursework for credit-deficient teens and adults. (pages 57 - 108)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- John Eric Humphries
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226100128.003.0003
[GED, Workforce Investment, Adult Education, Returns to Education, High School Graduation, Family Characteristics]
The analysis presented in this book shows that the GED credential provides little or no economic benefit for most. How can one reconcile the large number of dropouts who take the GED test despite this evidence? This chapter documents how the GED is widely promoted by society. Government programs incentivize GED certification and are judged by the number of GEDs they produce. Prisons, Adult Education programs, and workforce investment programs incentivize GED certification. The returns to post-secondary education, changes in family characteristics, and increases in high school graduation standards also increase demand for the certificate. (pages 109 - 136)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, Tim Kautz
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226100128.003.0004
[Determinants of GED Certification, Educational attainment, High School Graduation, Character, Cognitive Skills]
The pool of exam certified high school equivalents has changed greatly over the past 60 years. At the outset, exam certified equivalents were World War II veterans. The early equivalency tests were successful because they targeted these veterans, who had abundant character skills. The test certified their cognitive skills and their military experience certified their character skills. Nowadays, GED exam certification sends a mixed signal. In this chapter we show that across four different data sets, GED recipients have higher cognitive ability than other dropouts, but come from similar backgrounds and exhibit similar behaviours. The GED exam certifies cognitive skills, but dropping out of high school signals a shortfall of important character skills. (pages 139 - 170)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, Tim Kautz
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226100128.003.0005
[Economic Social Benefits of GED Certification, High School Graduation, Drop Out]
This chapter summarizes and extends the literature on the effects of GED certification. It estimates the social and economic benefits of GED certification for numerous adult outcomes using a variety of major data sets and empirical specifications. After controlling for their higher cognitive ability, male GED recipients are nearly indistinguishable from other male dropouts with regard to labor market outcomes including annual earnings, hourly wages, employment, and hours worked. Female GED recipients have higher annual earnings than other dropouts because they are more likely to be employed, not because they earn higher hourly wages. Our analysis shows that female GED recipients are more likely to participate in the labor force compared to other dropouts, but are not more likely to be employed if they do participate in the labor force. This finding is consistent with the interpretation that women who do not plan to work in the future have no incentive to earn a GED. The weight of the evidence supports the interpretation of the estimated GED effect for women as a selection effect. We find little evidence that the economic benefits to the GED increase with work experience. GED recipients and dropouts have very similar hourly wage profiles. (pages 171 - 267)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- Janice H. Laurence
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226100128.003.0006
[GED, Military, First Term Attrition, Education Credentials]
According to evidence from the nation's largest employer—the military, the GED program does not adequately prepare its “graduates” for work, particularly the non-cognitive or non-academic demands of the job. Perhaps the most important indicator of adjustment is first-term attrition—failure to complete a contracted term of enlistment. Despite the fact that GED recipients are screened more thoroughly (and thus, may be atypical of GEDs overall) they are more likely to create discipline problems and as a result are twice as likely as traditional diploma holders to be dismissed from or quit the military. The relationship between high school graduation status and attrition rate is consistent over time and attrition patterns by credential also hold regardless of level of aptitude, gender, race, age, geographic region, and socioeconomic status. And, although attrition varies by job, the patterns remain steadfast within occupational categories. There is evidence that noncognitive factors account for most of the diploma's predictiveness. That is, the personal and social skills, experiences, and attributes that enable students to complete high school also enable them to complete their first terms. (pages 268 - 289)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, Paul A. Lafontaine, Pedro L. Rodríguez
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226100128.003.0007
[GED, Dropout, Graduation Rate, Incentives]
The option to obtain a General Educational Development (GED) certificate changes the incentives facing high school students. This chapter evaluates the effect of three different GED policy innovations on high school graduation rates. A 6-point decrease in the GED pass rate produced a 1.3-point reduction in high school dropout rates. The introduction of a GED certification program in high schools in Oregon produced a 4% decrease in high school graduation rates. Introduction of GED certificates for civilians in California increased the dropout rate by 3 points. The GED program induces students to drop out of high school. (pages 293 - 317)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- Andrew Halpern-Manners, John Robert Warren, Eric Grodsky
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226100128.003.0008
[High Stakes Testing, State High School Exit Exams, GED Testing]
Over the past three decades, many states have enacted legislation mandating that students pass high school exit exams (HSEEs) before completing high school. There is considerable evidence to suggest that HSEEs reduce high school graduation rates, but few studies have examined their consequences for rates of GED testing. To remedy this situation, this chapter uses data from the GED Testing Service and other sources to estimate the effect state HSEE policies have had on rates of GED testing since the early 1980s. The results show that (1) HSEEs significantly increase rates of GED testing among high-school aged individuals; (2) GED test taking rates increase more when states implement more demanding HSEEs; and (3) the effects of HSEEs are most pronounced in states with greater shares of Hispanic students and higher rates of poverty. These findings are robust to a variety of model specifications and are supported by falsification tests. (pages 318 - 338)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- James J. Heckman, Tim Kautz
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226100128.003.0009
[Cognition, Character, Interventions, Rate of Return]
This chapter reviews the recent literature on the economics and psychology of character skills. For many measures of adult achievement, character skills predict later life outcomes with the same, or greater, strength as measures of cognition. Character is a skill--not a trait. It can be enhanced and there are proven and effective ways to do so. At any age, character skills are stable across different tasks but performance depends on multiple skills and the effort expended. Reliable measures of character have been developed. While stable at any age, skills are not set in stone over the life cycle. Parents, schools, and social environments shape cognitive and character skills, although there are important genetic influences. The early years are important in laying the foundation for successful investment in the later years. Character skills are more malleable than cognitive skills at later ages. This chapter reviews a variety of interventions targeted to different stages of the life cycle. Building an early base of skills that promote later life learning and engagement in school and society is a better strategy. Prevention is more effective than remediation, but if adolescent remediation is attempted, it should focus on improving the more malleable character skills. (pages 341 - 430)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

- James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, Tim Kautz
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226100128.003.0010
[GED, Character, cognitive ability, achievement tests, policy recommendations]
This chapter briefly reviews the two lessons from this book. For most, GED certification provides little or no economic benefit. Achievement tests do not measure character skills, which are crucial for a successful life. The chapter concludes with policy recommendations for the GED Testing Program and on fostering character in education. (pages 431 - 435)
This chapter is available at:
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...

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