Introducing a High School Exit Exam in Science: Consequences in Massachusetts

Preparing students for science, technology, and engineering careers is an urgent state policy challenge. We examined the design and roll-out of a science testing requirement for high school graduation in Massachusetts. While science test performance improved over time for all demographic subgroups, we observed rising inequality in failure rates and retest success. English learners, almost 8% of all test takers, accounted for 53% of students who never pass. We found large differences by family income, even conditional on previous test scores, that raise equity implications. Using a regression-discontinuity design, we showed that barely passing the exam increased high school graduation and college outcomes of students near the score threshold, particularly for females and students from higher-income families.