Boosting parental support for standardized testing

25 Jun Boosting parental support for standardized testing

By Dale Chu

Today, the Collaborative for Student Success, the National Parents Union (NPU), and EdTrust announced the results of a joint effort to bridge the gap between parents and policymakers on the important question of how state assessment results are used to smartly and efficiently drive resources in service of raising student achievement. Two years ago, an EdTrust report shined a light on the issue, and last week NPU released the results of a poll of 1,518 parents showing strong bipartisan support for the strategic use of statewide standardized tests. 

The NPU poll sought to, among other things, solicit general views of statewide testing and the corresponding data. It posed several questions aimed at the topic and found that, while parents have mixed feelings on testing itself, parental support grows when they understand how school leaders leverage the results. This goes doubly so if the data is used to allocate resources to the schools and students with the highest need.

To wit, when asked about the tradeoffs involved, a plurality of parents seemed ambivalent, with 41% saying that testing has “about equal benefits and downsides.” However, the story changed dramatically when parents were offered specific use cases—with broad majorities seeing value in the use of assessment data to make decisions on curriculum, professional development, programming, and staffing. Indeed, over 80% of parents saw value in the use of standardized tests as a high-impact resource allocation tool.

Moreover, even among the small number of parents who said that state tests have more negatives than positives (17%), half of them reported that they would see greater utility if the data was used to support struggling students. What this suggests is that educators and policymakers have done a lousy job explaining to parents why their children are tested in the first place—and the essential equity guardrails afforded by state assessments. Making matters worse, many of the criticisms of state tests have little to do in fact with the exams themselves. Mix in the ceaseless and cynical efforts to torpedo assessments altogether, and what you get is a noisy and confusing anti-testing din.

Fortunately, the NPU poll suggests that we don’t need to win parents over per se, as their support for standardized tests remains strong. However, it would be unwise to take this support for granted. What parents want is to be a part of the conversation about how assessment data is shared, and how it’s being used by school and district leaders to improve student outcomes. Policymakers and practitioners alike would do well to remember this… or to ignore parents at their own peril.

For more information about the poll’s findings, check out these helpful one-page overviews:

Parent support for statewide assessments grows when they understand how school leaders use the results

Parents want to hear more about assessment data and how school leaders use it in decision-making