Over the past twenty years, testing of prospective public school teachers has grown sharply. In 1987, twenty-seven states required applicants to pass a standardized test to be licensed to teach in public schools. By 1999, the number had grown to forty-one. Although the stated objective of testing is to improve the quality of newly hired teachers, there is no evidence that testing is achieving that goal. It is, however, associated with fairly large increases in teacher salaries, which suggests that testing currently leads to increased costs without any obvious measured benefits to schools.
