A new PDK/Gallup poll shows that most Americans oppose nationwide Common Core tests, and view other criteria such as engagement with classwork and feedback about school more important than performance in standardized testing in measuring the effectiveness of schools.
The multimode study involved interviewing 3,499 individuals through the Internet, and another 1,000 via phone. The Internet survey also allowed Gallup to categorize the respondents' ethnic background, and revealed a marked difference in attitude towards the new tests among whites, Hispanics, and blacks.
About 64% say that schools are placing too much emphasis on standardized testing, and only 19% think that using Common Core can improve the quality of public schools. However, among those interviewed, a higher percentage of whites (65%) agreed that the schools are placing more importance than required on standard tests, as compared to Hispanics (60%), and blacks (57%).
Moreover, only 14% think that scores that students receive on standardized tests can measure the effectiveness of public schools, while 16% think the tests can show an accurate picture of student's academic progress. The opinion on this issue, again, was not uniform among different ethnic groups. Only 11% whites supported the tests as reflecting the efficacy of school, even as a considerably higher percentage of blacks (28%) and Hispanics (23%) thought so.
Most parents think that measures such as improving the quality of teachers (95%), expectations of what students should learn (67%), and effectiveness of the principals (61%) would better improve the quality of public schools. They placed higher value on examples of students' work, written observations by the teacher and grades awarded by teacher to determine the student's academic progress, compared to reliance on standardized testing to reflect the ward's perspicuity in the subject.
About 19% say that the tests will help assess what students have truly learned. But blacks (30%) and Hispanics (29%) are more likely to place higher value on the standardized tests than whites (15%).
Only 18% thought that comparing performance of one district's community schools with another was important. Some 41% say that parents should be allowed to opt their children out of the standardized tests. Also, 44% of whites favor pulling out their kids from the tests, while only 28% blacks and 35% Hispanics want to exercise this choice.
Andres Alonso, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education said that the reasons amounting to the difference in perspectives among the blacks and Hispanics could be attributed to the problems their schools face, and that the standardized tests will justify their efforts to seek improvement in system.
"In communities in which they feel historically there has been inequity in the distribution of resources and opportunities... then there is going to be a demand of some kind of external, objective measure in order to push for different types of distributions," he said.
Notably, a majority of Americans (55%) are not in favor of states requiring the teacher evaluations to be tied to students' performance on standardized tests, and as much as 54% of the public school parents oppose teachers use the Common Core standards to guide what they teach.
Dr. Terry Stoops, director of education studies at the John Locke Foundation, said in an interview to the Christian Post, "As a parent of two public school children and spouse of a public school teacher, I know just how counterproductive, even detrimental, Common Core-inspired instruction can be."
"Parents have a front row seat to the Common Core chaos. They struggle to assist their children with assignments that do little to advance mastery. They see exasperated classroom teachers who are compelled by their superiors to implement Common Core in lockstep with their colleagues," he says.
