Enumerating High-Stakes Pathways: Exploring the Influence of the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) on Educational Trajectories

• In Event: 34.018 - Excellence in Education Research: Early-Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

In the current era of increased accountability for education, it is important to examine educational outcomes for compulsory education. Even more vital is the connection between secondary and postsecondary educational trajectories. Is what students are learning in high school relevant to their respective career paths after 12th grade?
This study advances the current state of knowledge in the field primarily in three ways. First, it examines the high school experience of students with high‐stakes tests and educational outcomes. Second, it assesses the educational landscape of students at the high school level and subsequent postsecondary enrollment for a sample of students in the state of California. Third, it makes the vital link of educational outcomes at the high school level with those in the post‐secondary level disaggregated by student background characteristics. Typically, one set of scholars in the field of education examine the educational outcomes at the high school level while others focus on the experiences of students in college. Very few empirical studies are able to make the connection between high school and postsecondary education. The contribution of the present study is the unique ability to longitudinally follow a group of students to understand their educational outcomes and trajectories. Most other studies are only able to achieve this via cross‐sectional sampling. The guiding research question for this study is: What are the educational trajectories of students with varying California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) scores?

Author

• Lucy Arellano, Oregon State University