Exit (Exams), Law, and Competency: A Story of Quantification, Law, and the Rise of Accountability in American Schools, 1970-1985

• In Event: School Accountability: Methods, Mandates, and Curriculum

Abstract

The history of American schooling in the second half of the 20th century has been increasingly defined by two characteristics: litigation and quantification. This paper seeks to integrate these two strands through an examination of the advent and early history of minimum competency and so-called “exit” examinations from the late 1960s-1985. In doing I argue that competency examinations offer an important window into not only how modern education has been shaped by the courts, but just as importantly, how courts have been a key site for the facilitation and expansion of quantification and an important arbiter of professional domains and expertise in education.

Author

• Ethan Hutt, Stanford University