Running Head: STANDARDIZED TESTING RESULTS AND USES 1

Standardized Testing Results and Uses: The Relationship Between Parental Opinion and School

Leadership’s Decisions

Brian Thayer

University of Missouri- Columbia

Abstract
STANDARDIZED TESTING RESULTS AND USES 2

As standardized testing has evolved over the past two decades, parental opinion regarding

the testing process and how its results are utilized has changed. Despite this change in parental

opinion, preferences about standardized testing may not be appropriately affecting how schools

and governments actually use standardized testing results. Reviewing the recent history of

standardized testing legislation in America will shed light on the development of school

practices. A further review of recent parental survey results nationwide provides the parental

opinion backdrop necessary for making any claims about insufficient consideration of parental

wishes. A policy review of how some school districts actually use standardized testing data will

illustrate the degree to which schools actually match the desires of their parents and the effect

their cooperation has on student success.

Standardized Testing Background

The topic of standardized testing has grown exponentially in importance and influence in

the past couple of decades in the United States. Two major legislative acts are essential to

understanding the development of standardized testing and how the results are utilized in the

country. The first of these important laws, No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was passed in

2001 and, most importantly, included a provision requiring schools to complete standardized

testing in order to receive federal funding. This was the main catalyst in the move toward large-

scale blanket testing and its tie to incentives/consequences. According to www.ed.gov, in 2012,

NCLB received a boost with the addition of Race to the Top (RTTT) which is a competitive

grant program the federal government used to incentivize the adoption of standards-aligned

curriculum.

The second distinct and important law pertaining to standardized testing in the United

States is the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 and replaced NCLB. ESSA made standards-
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aligned curriculum (the goal of RTTT) mandatory and the subject of the most targeted testing;

this legislation effectively combined NCLB and RTTT goals into one.

For the last two decades, standardized testing has become integrated into the fabric of what

public education means at its very definition. This process has not been accepted by all as

beneficial.

In some places, opinions about standardized testing and how the testing data is

subsequently utilized has vacillated from high levels of support at first to high levels of

opposition. Testing itself is cemented into public school practice by government legislation, but

how the testing results are used after the testing occurs is largely determined by the local school

district leadership. It is the usage of testing results that has become the most divisive aspect of

standardized testing- even more so than testing itself. A closer examination will determine the

extent to which there are differences between parental preferences and local school district

practices.

As times have changed and standardized testing has established itself in our nation’s

schools, parental opinion regarding the practice has not remained constant. Early support for

standardized testing has evolved, adapting to changing political environments and responding to

their own students’ experiences over the past two decades. What used to be a consensus view of

standardized testing and the applications of its results is now hotly debated among many

stakeholders. Researching current school practices and reviewing data on updated parental

opinion will allow for an accurate guide to taking action. Measuring this new parental view and

projecting its contours onto existing school district practices will show the extent that districts

may need to revise their approach to better serve their community and meet their expectations.
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This study will reveal the extent to which parents’ desires for standardized testing are

being considered in school district practices. The approach used in this research will be largely

inductive, responding to the data collected rather than predicting it. A survey of parental

preferences will help determine their support for standardized testing practices with an emphasis

on the use of testing results. Data will then be taken from select groups of parents of students

discussing their completed surveys. The combination of survey results and discussion of them

will help inform the state of current parental opinion regarding the use of standardized testing

results by local districts.

Literature Review

Parental Opinion of Standardized Testing

Parents and Racial Backgrounds

Even before the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, discussion of standardized testing

at the state level was well underway. Donegan and Trepanier-Street (1998) attempt to discover a

variety of information about the effectiveness of standardized tests as a measure of teacher and

student performance by surveying parents from multiple backgrounds as well as their children’s

teachers. Donegan and Trepanier-Street found that teachers viewed testing useful only in

measuring student progress. White parents prefer to measure student growth alone and Middle

Eastern parents viewed testing as useful in measuring all parties involved. This is not the only

study that used racial lines to show contrasting opinions about standardized testing and its uses.

Jacob and Lefgren (2007) reveal that parent opinion for teachers is heavily influenced by

two competing factors: student satisfaction and student achievement on standardized tests.

Parents from higher-income areas place a higher value on teachers who make students feel

satisfied with their school experience while parents from lower-income areas place a higher
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value on teachers who achieve higher average test scores for their students. A more recent study

reveals many of the same findings as in 2007. Kernan-Schloss (2015) found that Americans

believe as a whole that testing is overly emphasized in schools, especially to the extent that it is

used to measure and evaluate teachers. Caucasians also believed that students should be allowed

to opt-out. Non-whites were more confident in testing as a means to measure teachers and

students alike. All groups said the primary challenge facing schools today is lack of funding. In

addition to race, economic issues are a primary motivation and shaper of parental opinion, too.

Lay and Stokes-Brown’s (2009) study also examines racial and socio-economic factors

for their support regarding standardized testing. The sample of adults surveyed was weighted

toward Latinos but did incorporate significant numbers of whites and African-Americans. The

data of over 3,400 people in 2003 was collected by the Pew Research Center which has remained

a reputable source. Parents of different racial and socio-economic backgrounds are discovered to

view testing very differently, just as in the other studies reviewed here. This consistency in

studies increases the confidence of the accuracy of the perspective that minorities see

standardized testing more positively than Caucasians do. An example of this is found in the topic

of opting-out of testing. Which groups feel strongly enough that standardized testing is not in

their child’s best interests to actually take action and remove their students from testing

altogether by “opting-out”?

Parents and the Opt-Out Movement

The research collected in this paper by Pizmony-Levy and Green Saraisky (2016) focuses

on revealing who is opting-out of testing and why they are taking this action. Over 90% of the

respondents of their survey were parents of children in public school and about ¾ of them had

opted their children out of testing. As was revealed in the racial background literature, the
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opting-out parent is typically white, politically liberal, highly educated, and earns an above-

average income. Most of these parents have become active in the opt-out movement in the past

3-4 years through social media. About how big is the opt-out population, though? If the group

opting-out is sizable and growing enough, it may be able to influence policy.

Spencer (2015) follows the lives of a few parents of New York City elementary public

school students and their parents. These parents fit the mold of the standard anti-standardized

testing activists, but despite their strong convictions about the matter find it difficult to actually

refuse to have their own students participate in standardized testing. According to Spencer,

Governor Cuomo of New York proposed making standardized tests a significant 50% of a

teacher’s yearly evaluation. The article cites that about 5% of New York’s students eligible to

take the standardized tests did not do so, though not all of those were due to opting-out. Where

admission to competitive high schools is fiercest, the opt-out rate is less than one half of one

percent. Where that competition is lower, the opt-out rate is much higher- about 10%. Local

school districts may change their policies to appease those with anti-testing feelings if their

districts suffer from the lack of competition to gain admission. Now, it is necessary to review the

reasons why (mostly Caucasian) parents and teachers resist standardized testing.

Why Parents (and Teachers) Oppose Testing

Henderson (2016) aims to reveal the extent to which teachers, (particularly special

education teachers) experience anxiety when administering standardized tests. The study was

quantitative and applied the cognitive theory which assumed that subjects took in experiences

from the world they were in and view themselves through the lens of that information. A

questionnaire was given to 68 special education teachers in Georgia over a span of three months.

Henderson’s results show that teachers view testing in a consistently more negative way than
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parents do. Teachers tend to use testing results to evaluate themselves professionally and

personally. Parents do not use test results to evaluate their own performance to the same degree

and therefore, feel less anxiety about testing results as teachers. A particularly interesting

example of a parent opting-out is one that focuses on a parent who is also a teacher. The article

by Kirylo (2018) communicates the perspective of a very informed and engaged parent who has

used their right to opt-out their students from standardized testing. The findings of the author are

that standardized testing decreases the quality of education for the students and the quality of life

for teachers. Testing is misused as an evaluative tool for entire schools, teachers, and individual

students. The author claims there are alternative ways to assess these metrics that are more

effective, less costly, and beneficial to student learning.

O’Brien, Winn, and Currier (2014) focus on a specific case of one parent’s concern over

the quantity of time put toward the testing of students and the parent’s right to have their student

removed from testing. The article focuses on one case but reviews the larger context of the

parental opt-out movement, especially its causes. These causes are, in large part, due to poor

communication of districts with their stakeholders, namely the parents. Though there are many

examples (and more as time passes) of parents opposing standardized testing, most parents

actually do support the practice at the time of the study.

Why Parents Do Not Oppose Testing

“Parents who do not oppose testing” may seem like an odd phrasing, but it has been

chosen intentionally. Parents typically do not feel strongly in favor of standardized testing.

Instead, the most common view from parents is not of outright support, but of mere acceptance.

Gootman (2007) says that the survey collected by the City of New York in 2007 attempted to

discern what the priority concerns of its most interested parties were. The survey was collected
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from 587,000 respondent parents showed that only 1% of the surveyed parents believed

standardized testing was emphasized too greatly. An important fact to note is that this survey was

collected only 5 years after NCLB was enacted in 2002. Parental opinion has been shown to shift

from the extreme levels of nominal support demonstrated here to that of nominal resistance to

testing, on average.

The first step in that change of support begins to reveal itself in the first couple of years

after NCLB. This study by Osburn, Stegman, Suitt, and Ritter (2004) examines the stakeholders

in standardized testing for stress and anxiety produced by the testing process. The study focuses

on a single school district in Northwest Arkansas of middling socioeconomic status. Parents

surveyed reported their children overall did not feel undue pressure from standardized testing,

nor did they as their parents. Their main generalized concern is for the teachers who they view as

feeling more pressure than necessary. Teachers’ opinions about testing have come to influence

parental opinion at greater levels in the following years.

Mulvenon, Stegman, and Ritter (2005) show the real extent to which stakeholders

(teachers, especially) in the educational realm experience heightened levels of stress and anxiety

due to standardized testing in the first years after standardized testing legislation was passed.

Similar to the study above, the conclusions reached were that students and parents were not

overly stressed by the testing process and even appreciated testing for its value in reporting areas

of strength and weakness in the students. Teachers were the only group to report significant

misgivings about testing. This result is not considered surprising since teachers are a group

facing economic consequences from the results of student performance. These results also

continue to represent the early years of standardized testing opinion.

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In a much more recent study, Harris (2015) presents information explaining the

perspective of parents regarding various testing topics but through the lens of existing empirical

data. Harris concludes that parents tend to support the judgments made by teachers about testing

and typically support new testing perspectives once they are thoroughly explained. In other

words, parents are willing to accept the perspective on testing that is promoted to them by the

educational authorities in their lives: most notably, teachers, who have generally negative

feelings about standardized testing and how its results are used. Demonstrating this change in

opinion, a more recent expansive study on parental opinion is by Ferguson (2015). The article

reviews how public opinion has changed over a vast 50 year time period. The article aims to

point out that opinion has changed dramatically from 75% in favor of standardized testing to a

majority opposing the practice. Their conclusion is that testing opinion is related directly to the

legislation on testing uses the results. Testing is not seen as the enemy here, but rather how

legislation asks schools and governments to use testing results.

The Law and Testing in Practice

Parental opinion is swinging against standardized testing in large part because parents do

not view legislation requiring the practice to be effective for their children. Lavery (2016)

assesses parental understanding of the legislation and measures whether basing continued policy

decisions on parental participation would be sound decision-making. The article proposes that

since NCLB relies on parent actions for sanctions on schools to be effective, parents must agree

that sanction measures are useful and then take action. Lavery finds that parents do not take that

action as a general rule. Parents do not understand their responsibility in the policy landscape and

thus, NCLB is much less effective in accomplishing its actual goals. The article by Regenstein,

Boer, and Zavitkovsky (2018) illuminates this precarious situation. The state of Illinois has spent
STANDARDIZED TESTING RESULTS AND USES 10

more than a decade failing to meet the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act. These failures that

the state has experienced are not limited to just Illinois. The state is fairly representative of the

nation as a whole. This study demonstrates that the feeling parents have about standardized

testing and its effects on the achievement of students are correct: student achievement has not

improved as expected. These feelings are only exacerbated by the increased intensity of ESSA’s

requirements in 2015.

While testing and its approach have failed generally (and parental opinion has slumped in

response), there have been a few examples of standardized tests being used successfully. An

example of recent successful implementation and use of standardized testing results in a local

school district is presented by a report by Dougherty (2015). The author focuses on two school

districts in Texas and how they decided to use standardized testing data to support teaching and

learning. This report provides a model for how standardized testing can be used by school

districts to monitor student progress and use standardized testing data in productive ways that do

not cause undue stress or anxiety in the stakeholders most affected: students and teachers.

Conclusions

The literature on the subject of standardized testing and parental opinion is vast. What

can be clearly established from the literature above is that parental opinions about standardized

testing started off (just after the passing of No Child Left Behind) mostly positive or at the very

least, indifferent. Teachers, almost from the start, were opposed to standardized testing for a

variety of reasons. Over time, the influence of teachers on the opinions of parents became more

clearly seen and measured through survey data. In particular, parents now think that standardized

testing should not be used to determine funding for schools or for determining pay for teachers-

it should instead be limited to measuring student growth.

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Due to this influence and a lack of understanding of their own obligations toward their

children’s education, parents’ view of NCLB and other legislation began to turn toward the

negative. Teachers are stressed by the practice because they are being evaluated by testing data,

their pay is sometimes linked to it, and too much class time is spent testing. School districts have

not been able to meet legislative benchmarks set by the No Child Left Behind Act or Every

Student Succeeds Act. This result has many causes, but their effect cannot be denied:

Standardized testing has lost and is continuing to lose public support in many communities

(though it is still popular, especially in minority communities).

Success with standardized testing is not unachievable, though. As is seen in two school

districts in Texas, when standardized testing is used in a more limited way- not to determine

funding levels for schools or to determine teacher pay- it can contribute to the better functioning

of the schools and the better education of its students. When parental opinion of standardized

testing is acted upon by the school districts serving their children, the effect is more positive all-

around. Districts experience more success because teachers experience more support, students

gain more growth, and parents have peace of mind. The conclusion may not be resounding yet,

but the review of literature is favoring district policy on standardized testing and its uses when it

follows the wishes of their parents. The question is how to achieve the desired synchronicity:

through increased communication efforts by districts with their constituents or through increased

sensitivity by districts to their parents’ communication with them? The answer is likely both.

Methodology

Method and Research Questions

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A quantitative survey composed of closed-ended questions about parental preferences

will help determine their support for standardized testing practices with an emphasis on the use

of testing results. Qualitative data will then be taken from select focus groups consisting of

parents of students reflecting the demographic makeup of their community discussing their

opinions from the completed closed-ended survey responses. The research will, therefore, be of

mixed-method convergent design and is best represented as QUAN + QUAL (Creswell &

Creswell, 2018). This approach will allow for clear, measurable results to be collected as well as

allow parents to fluidly reflect on their own opinions without being led by an interviewer to

predetermined conclusions. A hypothesis is derived from the results due to the inductive nature

of the study, rather than proposed ahead of the study. The hypothesis that will be developed

eventually will be based on the results of the following research questions (three explicitly

demographic in nature due to its proven influence on results and one target question):

1. What ethnicity best defines you? White, African-American, Latino, Asian, Other.

2. Are you a parent or guardian of a current public school student? Yes or No.

3. Are you a teacher or the spouse of a current public school teacher? Yes or No.

4. Multiple choices can be selected: How should standardized testing results be utilized?

a. To measure individual student achievement

b. To measure entire student cohort achievement

c. To measure the effectiveness of a single teacher’s instruction

d. To measure the effectiveness of an entire district’s instruction

e. To determine individual teacher compensation

f. To determine state and federal education funding for entire districts

g. Other: Please explain

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Variables

The independent variable under consideration for this research is that the participants are

parents of current public school students. The dependent variable in this case then, is the

opinions parents hold of how standardized testing results should be utilized. Mediating variables

used to explain the relationship between the dependent and independent variables are if the

participants are teachers (who have distinct opinions regarding standardized testing according to

available research) and if the participants are Caucasian or a racial minority (who are also known

to have distinct opinions regarding standardized testing use).

Target Population

The target population are the parents of current public school students in Harrisonville,

Missouri; this is a town of 10,000 people about 30 miles south of Kansas City, Missouri. The

population is 89% white with 2% African-American and 3% Latino populations (“Harrisonville,

MO,” 2019). This demographic breakdown is also represented in the student population. The

graduation rate in Harrisonville for high school students is 86.7% compared to the state average

of 89.6% (“Harrisonville R-IX,” 2019). The median resident age is 35 compared to the state

average of 37 and the average household income is $41,000, about $10,000 less than the state

average (“Harrisonville, MO,” 2019). So, overall, the population of Harrisonville is slightly

younger and significantly less affluent than state average.

Sample Collection and Ethical Considerations

The sample of participants will be gathered by contacting local schools and asking school

district leadership including building principals for permission to make the survey available to

parents visiting for parent-teacher conferences in the fall. Survey respondents will be ensured to
STANDARDIZED TESTING RESULTS AND USES 14

be parents or guardians of students (the target population) because they are attending this event.

From these survey participants, focus groups will be collected who accurately represent the

proportion of residents from differing socio-economic and racial backgrounds. The tool used to

collect data from the sample of parents attending conferences will be a four-question survey

distributed via Survey Monkey and completed using school district Chromebook laptops.

Focus group members will be contacted using the contact information collected at parent-

teacher conferences. The four focus groups will meet on the day of spring parent-teacher

conferences a few months later. During the focus group meetings, members will discuss their

responses to survey questions (members will receive their own survey responses on that day as a

reminder) and the independent supervisor/researcher will observe their conversation and

facilitate the discussion topic centering around “How should standardized testing results be

used?” This data will be free of influence due to the conversational nature of the discussion

between parents without leading or prompting of opinions from the independent researcher. Only

one topic of discussion (question 2, options a-f) will help focus the conversation and make it

quick and productive. Focus group members identification will be kept private for ethical

concerns.

Data Analysis and Timeline

Data analysis will be facilitated by Survey Monkey whose software is sophisticated

enough to sort responses and provide create easy-to-read charts and graphs. These data sets will

be compared to local school district policy regarding the use of standardized test results. The

degree to which district policy and parental opinion correspond will be made known to the

school district and to the participating parents in the survey.

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The initial survey will be dispersed and collected in late October at parent-teacher

conferences in the fall. In the subsequent four months, parents completing the survey will be

contacted about involvement in one of four focus groups in March at the spring parent-teacher

conferences. Parents agreeing to participate will attend a single focus group meeting at the

school district’s central office the same evening of spring conferences. The groups will be made

up of seven parents of current public school students reflecting community demographics: 85%

white and 15% non-white. In other words, 6 out of 7 members will be Caucasian and 1 will be a

racial minority. No members will be teachers, spouses of teachers, or district employees. The

reason this selection is being made is because racial background and identification with teachers

has been shown to impact opinions regarding standardized testing in a statistically meaningful

way whereas other variables have not.

Summary

Parents of current public school students in a small town in Missouri will be asked to

participate in a short survey seeking a small amount of demographic data as well as their opinion

regarding how standardized testing data should be used by their local school district. The survey

will be quantitative in its closed-ended format, but will be followed up with an open-ended

qualitative focus group discussion about their survey answers. These results will be compared

and synthesized to discover nuance in parental opinion. These opinions will then be contrasted

with the local school district’s policies regarding the use of standardized testing results

highlighting areas of agreement and disagreement. The entire process will require roughly six

months of data collection and analysis.

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