How Will Standards Testing Affect My Child?

States and local districts will determine how they will use the results of standards testing to make decisions about individual students and local schools, beyond what is required to determine if schools are meeting the federal mandate to show "annual yearly progress." In the best of situations, the results of standards tests will be used to improve curriculum and instruction, to set realistic goals for individual students and schools, and to identify individual student difficulties early so that effective support can be provided. However, a number of "high stakes" decisions are often based on the results of standards tests-decisions that have significant impact on the individual student, the teacher, and/or the school. These high stakes decisions might include:

Promotion or retention: Some states or districts may determine that students who fail one or more standards tests will be retained in grade for the next year. For example, recently the state of Florida announced that over 40,000 third graders would be retained based on their failure to pass the third grade test. Other states might require summer school for students who fail to meet a criterion score on one or more of the state tests. And other states and districts may not use standards tests at all for the purpose of making promotion decisions. Because research demonstrates that retention is not an effective practice, states and districts are encouraged to base promotion decisions on more comprehensive information than standards tests alone. Knowing that a test will be used to determine promotion to the next grade places a high degree of stress on students, teachers, and parents; stress by itself can negatively affect a student's performance on these tests!

High school graduation: A number of states have adopted graduation standards that often include attaining passing scores on state tests. As with promotion decisions, using state tests for this purpose places significant pressure on students, schools, and families and can hinder optimal test performance. Most effective school policies will look at a number of factors in determining if students are eligible for graduation. However - if your state's graduation standards require passing a state test, you and your child should begin working with your school and preparing now for this new requirement. At the same time, you might join forces with other parents and educators to try to bring about change in your state's policy.

Placement in programs and classes: Standards tests can serve as a district-wide or school-wide screening program to identify students needing extra help. However, before placing a student into a special program or remedial classroom, parents and schools should consider more than the results on these tests. Attendance, daily work and homework completion, and the quality of student work should be important factors in deciding who needs a special class or different program.

Classifying schools as successes or failures: Through NCLB, Congress has established a system of identifying schools that fail to make "annual yearly progress" and allowing students to transfer out of such schools. Persistent failure, defined as inadequate progress on standards tests, could lead to changes in school administration or other types of "corrective action" intended to improve achievement overall. Again, such high stakes consequences place considerable pressure on teachers and students, with one risk being "teaching to the test"-putting a lot of emphasis on improving test scores at the expense of broader instructional goals. This makes it particularly important to understand how your state will be implementing any corrective actions based on "annual yearly progress." Your local school district is the best source for complete information on your school's scores and performance on these new tests.

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