Testing, Accountability, and the American Economy

• DOI: 10.1177/0002716219841299
• Date: 01 May 2019
• Author: Eric A. Hanushek
• Published date: 01 May 2019
• Subject Matter: Assessments for System Accountability

110 ANNALS, AAPSS, 683, May 2019

DOI: 10.1177/0002716219841299

Testing,

Accountability,

and the

American

Economy

By

ERIC A. HANUSHEK

841299ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYTESTING, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND THE AMERICAN ECONOMY

research-article2019

Recent research highlights the importance of academic

achievement as a determinant of economic well-being.

Individual earnings, income growth in states, and

national growth rates for GDP are each significantly

determined by the population’s cognitive skills, which

in turn are proxied by scores on standardized achieve-

ment tests. This well-documented relationship between

education and economic outcomes underscores the

importance of using test information to guide both

school policy and school operations. While test-based

accountability has been controversial, scientific evi-

dence about the economic value of school improve-

ment and about the efficacy of various accountability

approaches points to holding schools and teachers

accountable for their contributions to the academic

performance of students.

Keywords: school accountability; teacher value-

added; standardized test scores; economic

growth; individual incomes; cognitive

skills

Testing has long been a polarizing concept.

Some educators and policy-makers view

testing as a necessary component of any effort

to improve the quality of schools and to lessen

inequality of opportunities. Others see the reli-

ance on testing, and particularly test-based

accountability, as narrowing the curriculum,

leading teachers to substitute test preparation

for deep instruction and more generally making

teaching an undesirable occupation. These

Eric Hanushek is the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior

Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

His recent book with Ludger Woessmann, The

Knowledge Capital of Nations: Education and the

Economics of Growth (MIT Press 2015), documents

the close relationship between school performance and

economic growth.

NOTE: Many helpful suggestions and comments came

from Michael Feuer, Richard Murnane, and partici-

pants of the Workshop on Educational Assessment as

Useful and Useable Evidence.

Correspondence: hanushek@stanford.edu

TESTING, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND THE AMERICAN ECONOMY 111

opposing viewpoints, which often take on an ideological flavor, guide much dis-

cussion of testing and accountability. This article introduces evidence supporting

the argument that, especially from a perspective of individual and national eco-

nomic well-being, a focus on achievement as measured by standardized tests is

appropriate and warranted. The evidence strongly supports policies directly

related to these measures of performance—both of schools and teachers.

I begin with a consideration of the relationship between the skills measured

by standardized tests and economic outcomes. My argument is that there is great

economic value to skills as measured by tests. Although other things may also

warrant attention, including such attributes as civic engagement or noncognitive

skills, tests can provide a useful measuring rod for skills valued in the economy. I

turn then to the case for using standardized tests for accountability in the educa-

tional system, including both school and teacher accountability.

Economic Value of Achievement

Existing research shows a very strong and consistent relationship between scores

on common standardized tests and economic outcomes seen not only in indi-

vidual earnings but also national growth rates. This linkage to future economic

well-being should focus our attention on educational approaches that improve

student performance. Fortunately, research also pinpoints key issues that are

important when looking to improve schools.

Economic growth of nations

Economic growth determines the future economic well-being of nations.

Economists have considered the process of economic growth for much of the last

hundred years, but until recently little attention was given to the large differences

in growth rates across nations. Over the past quarter century, economists have

linked the analysis of economic growth more closely to empirical observations of

country differences, which has yielded insights relevant for government policy.

Early efforts at extracting fundamental factors underlying growth differences

proved difficult, leading some researchers to abandon the attempt (see, for exam-

ple, Levine and Renelt 1992; Levine and Zervos 1993). Recent analyses suggest

that a significant portion of the difficulty came from issues surrounding the meas-

urement of skills of a nation’s population.

Virtually all empirical studies about the long-run growth of countries have

highlighted a role for human capital. The early literature focusing on cross-

country differences in economic growth overwhelmingly employed measures

related to school attainment, or years of schooling, to test the human capital

aspects of growth models. This work tended to find a significant positive associa-

tion between quantitative measures of schooling and economic growth (see, for

example, Sala-i-Martin, Doppelhofer, and Miller 2004). However, the overall

validity and reliability of these empirical analyses remained open to question

(Pritchett 2006).