The Origins of American Test-Based Educational Accountability and Controversies About Its Impact, 1970–1983

Abstract

Background and Context: Statewide test-based accountability in the United States began with minimum competency assessments in public schools during the 1970s, starting in Florida and other Southern states. Controversies over IQ (intelligence quotient) testing contributed to the development of “criterion-referenced” exams that became the principal form of assessment for such purposes. These developments provoked considerable discussion, much of it focused on the high failure rates on such tests, disproportionally borne by ethnic and racial minority students. Controversy over these events eventually led to a formal debate sponsored by the National Institute of Education (NIE), and a federal lawsuit that established the legality of such assessment regimes. Purpose: This article is a historical account of the rise of standardized testing for school accountability in the United States and the controversies that it entailed in the years before 1983. It highlights events in Florida, which set the tone for developments elsewhere with a high school exit exam. It also describes controversies within the measurement field about statewide tests as graduation requirements. In addition, it considers the response of policymakers to criticism of test-based accountability, setting the stage for developments leading to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era. Research Design: The research for this study was historical in orientation, employing a combination of primary (contemporaneous) and secondary (subsequent) documents, along with published research, to construct an interpretive account in narrative form. This process yielded an explanatory frame highlighting debates over the proper use and practical impact of standardized testing for accountability purposes. The results generally comported with other historical accounts of the period, even as they provided a considerably more detailed record of relevant events and principal actors. Conclusion: This historical account places the origins of test-based accountability a decade earlier than A Nation at Risk (1983), often considered its impetus. Florida became the first state to establish a comprehensive testing system for accountability, and other Southern states soon followed. This had a racially disparate impact on these states and others, depriving many thousands of African American and other students of high school diplomas. There is scant evidence that such tests appreciably raised achievement levels for all students, a widely proclaimed purpose of accountability regimes. Even so, test-based accountability remained a controversial cornerstone of educational reform proposals for decades to come, anticipating debates during the contentious NCLB years.