The Response to High-Stakes Testing in Chile: Did Schools Improve Learning or Merely Inflate Test Scores?

Accountability for high-stakes tests pressures schools to improve test scores. Yet it is often unclear whether schools improve scores through “academic strategies” such as better instruction, or through “non-academic strategies” such as having low-performing students “miss” high-stakes tests. Evaluating the effects of a Chilean high-stakes accountability program, we find that schools doubled the percentage of students who missed the tests, and that the increase in missing test scores was concentrated among students with low grades. Missing test scores exaggerated by 50% the apparent effect of accountability on low-income students, and allowed up to one-fifth of low-scoring schools to avoid accountability for low scores. We find limited evidence that teachers changed their academic practices, such as providing more feedback to students. Much of the program’s effect remains unexplained.