As standards-based reform accelerates throughout U.S. education, few topics cause more anxiety among parents than student testing—especially when tests are tied to high stakes such as grade-level advancement and graduation.
The United States is moving forward with accountability measures in education, including testing that will add requirements for promotion and graduation in more than half the states by the year 2003. Yet many parents are unfamiliar with the names of the tests, don't understand what test scores mean, and, more critically, don't know what is measured by their state's educational assessments.
Recently, Sylvan Learning Center and ASCD sponsored a national survey of parents to better understand their perceptions of state-mandated testing. The survey was conducted over the Internet by Harris Interactive, a national polling company. To participate in the survey, parents had to consider themselves at least moderately involved in their children's education.
The survey found that many parents are indeed confused about the tests. Half the parents who responded said they were not sure what their states were trying to measure, nor did they trust that the tests showed what their children had learned.
Parents appear to be divided over whether state-mandated tests are having a positive impact in classrooms. About 57 percent of the parents said that "some academic skills areas are being overlooked" because so much class time is spent preparing for tests. However, slightly more than half the parents agreed that tests should be used to determine who gets promoted to the next grade or who graduates from high school.
The backlash against standards tends to occur when promotion and graduation decisions are tied to state tests. As more states tie standards to high-stakes testing, more parents and educators are crying foul. The test scores have become less a means of documenting achievement than an end in themselves.
Where Do We Go from Here?
The primary responsibility for providing test-related information to parents rests with school, state, and national education leaders. In his seventh Annual State of American Education Address, U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley suggested that "the ultimate success of this effort depends on our teachers and principals, and it requires us to go the extra mile to make sure that parents understand and support their efforts. State leaders and educators need to listen hard to legitimate concerns. Involve the entire community and avoid the 'here's the test' top-down approach of putting assessments in place."
Student performance data can provide both direction and impetus for educators to make systemic changes that will afford our diverse students equal opportunities for learning (Middleton and Thomas, 2000). Standardized tests, sensibly applied, can be a useful tool in the educators' toolbox.
But educators should rely on more than one measure when making decisions on students' competence. Senator Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) and Representative Robert Scott (D-Va.) filed legislation in the Senate (S. 2348) and House (H.R. 4333) that would bar states and school districts that receive federal education aid from using test scores as a "sole determinant" in making decisions about "the retention, graduation, tracking, or within-class ability grouping of an individual student." This legislation has attracted even more attention to the issue of high-stakes testing.
To prevent leaving parents behind in the student-testing frenzy and to ensure that every child has an equal opportunity for success, local and state education leaders must maintain a healthy, ongoing dialogue with parents. If we provide parents with good information about testing, we will make them more comfortable with the process (Fremer, 2000). To fulfill this responsibility, we must consider parents' interests and needs when designing communication vehicles. Both ASCD and Sylvan Learning Center have established a Web site to help parents better understand and interpret test results and to support classroom efforts (visit http://www.ascd.org or http://www.educate.com).
As Annette Petrick suggests, "Connectivity demands a mindset change for 21st century leadership" (Petrick, 2000, p. 2). Local and state leaders must work diligently to repair frayed connections with parents. Furthermore, it is vitally important that state testing and accountability programs be fair and valid. Education leaders must continue to improve these programs to ensure that they serve the needs of all children—and tell parents what they deserve to know about state-mandated tests.