TECHNOLOGIES OF USING TESTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF COGNITIVE ABILITIES IN STUDENT YOUTH

Abstract

Cognitive skills predict academic performance, so schools that improve academic performance might also improve cognitive skills. Test scores and gains in test scores over time correlated with measures of cognitive skills. Despite wide variation in test scores across schools, differences in cognitive skills across schools were negligible after controlling for 4th-grade test scores. Random offers of enrollment to over-subscribed charter schools resulted in positive impacts of such school attendance on math achievement, but had no impact on cognitive skills. These findings suggest that schools that improve standardized achievement tests do so primarily through channels other than cognitive skills.