High-school exit examinations are becoming increasingly popular in the United States, with a “major impact” on how students are taught, an advocacy group concluded in a report released this morning.

That doesn’t mean American colleges are seeing better-prepared freshmen, however, because most high-school exit exams do not appear to be aligned with the knowledge and skills that are necessary for college readiness, the Center on Education Policy found.

The Washington-based center says in the report that 65 percent of public high-school students must pass an exit exam in order to graduate. But of the 23 states with exit exams that responded to a survey, only six said their test was designed to measure the knowledge and skills needed for college. Only nine states said their tests were intended to measure readiness for the workplace, the report says.

A majority of states instead use the high-school exit exams to measure mastery of state-designed curricula, a pattern suggesting that the states lack a clear idea of the purpose of the exit exams or the need for tough standards, the report says.

The center recommended that states, as they work harder to ensure that more high-school students pass the tests, also work harder to ensure that a passing grade has meaning for students entering college or the workplace. —Paul Basken