New York - Countering recent news reports of a parental backlash against academic standards and standardized tests, a new national report from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Public Agenda finds broad support for the way higher academic standards are being put in place. The survey of 803 parents of public school students in grades K-12 reveals scant evidence to substantiate a backlash, even among parents who live in districts that are actually implementing higher academic standards in the schools their children attend.

No Desire to Turn Back

Only 2% of parents who know their school district is implementing higher academic standards want to stop and go back to the way things were before the standards were put in place. Fifty-three percent want to continue with the effort as planned, and one in three (34%) want to continue but with some adjustments.

Findings from additional interviews in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles and New York - five cities with highly visible efforts to raise standards - virtually mirror the national results. Funding for the survey was provided by the Thomas B. Fordham, George Gund, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur, and John M. Olin Foundations.

Based on this research - and surveys by other organizations - reports of the 'death' of the standards movement have been wildly exaggerated, says Deborah Wadsworth, President, Public Agenda. Parents with children in schools where these reforms have been instituted say their districts have been 'careful and reasonable.' They give their schools remarkably good notices on the changes they have made.

In the national survey, more than eight in ten (82%) parents who know their school district is implementing higher standards believe their schools have, in fact, been careful and reasonable in putting the new standards in place. Even among parents in large urban school districts, substantial majorities say their schools' efforts were carefully and reasonably conducted: New York (80%), Cleveland (75%), Los Angeles (74%), Chicago (72%), and Boston (64%).

Nevertheless, most parents would draw a line if important decisions about a child's future rested solely on a single test. Almost 8 in ten (78%) agree that it's wrong to use the results of just one test to decide whether a student gets promoted or graduates.

Few Reports of Problems

Few parents report that their own child is overly taxed by school work, or that their child's school or teachers are overemphasizing standardized tests to the detriment of other important learning. Among the most compelling findings in this survey are those based on parents' experiences with their own child, not hypothetical situations. For example (see questionnaire for complete question wording and results):

• Only 9% of parents say that teachers are putting too much academic pressure on their child.
• Only 10% say their child is getting too much homework.
• Only 10% say their child's school fails to provide extra help to students who are struggling.
• Only 11% say their child's school requires them to take too many standardized tests.
• Only 12% say the standardized tests that their child takes ask questions so difficult or unfair that students cannot be expected to answer them.
• Only 18% say the teachers in their child's school focus so much on preparing for standardized tests that real learning is neglected.
• A 1999 study of public school teachers conducted by Public Agenda suggests that few are confronting widespread displeasure: only 9% said they have often been pressured to promote a student who they felt wasn't ready to move up.

My Child Too

The survey probed respondents' views by asking whether parents would stick with higher standards - and the consequences - even if their own children were held accountable. More than eight in ten (81%) parents approve of having a policy in their child's school that would require summer school for students who can't meet the standards. Asked how they would feel if their own child was advised to attend summer school, 85% say their approval would persist. Two out of three (68%) would approve even if it meant their own child would be held back a grade.

Standardized Tests

Most parents in this survey take a moderate approach to the use of standardized tests. When asked how they would respond if large numbers of students in their school district did poorly on a standardized test, relatively few (22%) would think that something was wrong with how the test was designed; most (57%) would conclude that the schools failed to adequately prepare students (another 12% would think that the kids themselves lacked the ability to do well). Mirroring findings from a recent survey conducted for The Business Roundtable, parents say that standardized tests do provide a variety of important functions:

• Seventy-one percent support testing during the elementary school years as a way to help identify struggling students early so they can get help. Just 26% oppose it, saying early testing is wrong because it puts too much pressure on young kids.
• Seventy-five percent agree that students pay more attention and study harder if they know they must pass a test to get promoted or to graduate.
• Seventy-six percent agree that requiring schools to publicize their standardized test scores is a wake-up call and a good way to hold schools accountable.
• Fifty-five percent think that because standardized tests measure important skills and knowledge, there is nothing wrong with spending a significant portion of class time preparing students for these tests, compared to 38% who think this is a problem.

But as noted earlier, few would want a child's fate to rest solely on the results of just one test, and a large majority of parents agree that standardized test scores should be used in conjunction with teacher evaluations when making promotion decisions (78%).

Some Cautionary Notes

Strong support for raising academic standards is evident from these findings - especially among parents who know that such efforts are taking place in their own child's school. But the data also identify several areas where support for standards could be undermined. To begin with, parents don't want schools and teachers to emphasize standardized tests at the expense of other important learning, and almost six in ten (59%) agree that the schools today place far too much emphasis on standardized test scores.

Very few parents discount the usefulness of some standardized testing. But that doesn't mean districts have a free pass to institute these policies in hurtful or callous ways, says Ms. Wadsworth. Parents strongly object to basing promotion and graduation on the results of one single test, and there is some feeling that there is perhaps too much emphasis on testing nationwide.

Likewise, standards advocates should not take parental support for granted. Only 55% of parents say that the public schools in their district are making an effort to put higher standards in place - even though all states but one have introduced standards initiatives, often to great fanfare. Remarkably, this is true even in the five high-visibility cities we surveyed [Chicago (58%), Los Angeles (57%), Boston (54%), New York (50%) and Cleveland (41%)]. Many parents also acknowledge they don't know how many standardized tests their own child is required to take, how difficult they are or how much class time is spent preparing for them.

Other key findings:

• If their school district required students to pass a test to get a high school diploma, most parents would prefer that the exam measure basic skills (53%) rather than higher level learning (27%); 17% think it's a bad idea to require kids to pass such a test.
• Only one in five (21%) parents would want their school district to replace teachers whose students consistently fail standardized tests, compared to 71% who would want the teachers to be retrained.
• Fifty-one percent of parents would want their school district to financially reward teachers whose students consistently get higher standardized test scores.

Copies of the questionnaire with full survey results for both the national and citywide findings and data charts can be obtained at no charge from Public Agenda Online (www.publicagenda.org). Past Public Agenda studies including Reality Check 2000 (published in Education Week's Quality Counts 2000) and Standards and Accountability: Where the Public Stands (published in 1999 for the National Education Summit) also show strong support for higher academic standards in schools.

Methodology: Public Agenda's survey is based on a national random sample telephone survey of 803 parents of public school students in grades K-12. The survey took place between September 18 and 26, 2000. The margin of error for the national sample is +/- 3 percentage points. Oversamples were conducted with at least 200 parents of students who attend public school in each of the following cities: Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles and New York. The margin of error for each oversample city is +/- 7 percentage points. Prior to the survey, Public Agenda conducted two focus groups with parents of public school students.

Public Agenda, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization, located in New York City, is well respected for its trustworthy public opinion polls and its balanced citizen education materials. Founded in 1975 by Cyrus R. Vance, the former U.S. Secretary of State, and Daniel Yankelovich, the social scientist and author, its mission is to inform leaders about the public's views and to inform citizens about government policy.

• Chart: Few Reports of Problems
• Chart: When Students Do Poorly
• Chart: No Desire to Turn Back
• Chart: Careful and Reasonable
• Download the Report