Sherman Dorn has a good post on the new Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of public attitudes towards public education.
Excerpt:
My nomination for most significant result is from Table 14, asked of those who agreed in a prior question that “standardized tests encourage teachers to ‘teach to the test,’ that is, concentrate on teaching their students to pass the tests rather than teaching the subject.” The majorities answering yes to that first question (in Table 13) haven’t changed much between 2003 (when 68% of public-school parents and 64% of adults without children in school said yes, standardized testing encouraged teaching to the test) and 2007 (with 75% and 66% of each group saying testing encouraged teaching to the test).
While a clear majority has always seen testing as encouraging teaching to the test, American adults have changed their mind on whether that is good or not. In 2003, 40% of surveyed parents with children in public schools thought that teaching to the test was a good thing. This fits in well with arguments by David Labaree, Jennifer Hochschild, and Nathan Scovronick that a good part of the appeal of public schooling is to serve private purposes, giving children a leg up in a competitive environment. In that context, it makes enormous sense to value teaching to the test, since many parents understand how college admissions tests are related to access to selective institutions and scholarships. While 58% of public-school parents thought that teaching to the test was a bad idea in 2003, a sizable minority thought it was just fine.
That opinion has changed, dramatically. In the 2007 poll, only 17% of public-school parents thought that teaching to the test was a good thing. Fewer than one-half of one percent had no opinion, and 83% of public-school parents thought that teaching to the test is a bad thing. Adults who did not have children in school also have changed their minds, with 22% of those surveyed this year thinking that teaching to the test is a good thing.
Despite these findings, I don’t see an end to the obsession with standardized test data as the measure of districts, schools, teachers and students in the near future and this means that those who teach and learn “to the test” will continue to be praised and the discussion of what we want from our schools will continue to begin and end with test scores.
As always, The National Center for Fair & Open Testing has much to offer on testing in American education.
Thomas J. Mertz
AMPS 