Rules vs. Discretion in the Use of Educational Testing
Date & Time: October 29th, 2026 @ 11:45 AM
Location: Senate Chambers, FSU Student Union
Join us for a presentation by David Figlio, the Gordon Fyfe Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester, Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 2015, Florida changed its rules regarding student remediation in middle/high school from a system in which remediation was determined relatively strictly based on test score proficiency cutoffs to one with considerable educator discretion. We make use of a variety of causal research designs to demonstrate that students tend to have better long-run college outcomes (attendance, persistence, and success) when educators have discretion versus when they must follow proficiency-based rules, especially when educators have high value added. We also provide evidence that there is still value to remediation, and that discretion is not simply "less of a bad treatment".
Free lunch begins at 11:30am, event spans 11:45am-12:45pm.
