Attitude Helps Parents Reduce Test Anxiety

by Jill Miller Zimon

"At college age, you can tell who is best at taking tests and going to school,

but you can’t tell who the best people are. That worries the hell out of me."

Surveys and anecdotal evidence indicate that many people share Keeney’s concerns about the limitations of standardized testing. If, as parents, we’ve made the decision to send our kids to public schools and thereby agree to our district’s curriculum choices and State of Ohio requirements, how do we calm our fears and those of our children?

Results of the 36^th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools became available in late August 2004. Among questions related to the federal education law commonly known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), this year’s poll included a few about standardized testing’s role in our education system.

According to the poll, nearly three-quarters of the general public, and a full three-quarters of public school parents, do not think it’s possible to accurately judge a student’s proficiency in English or math on the basis of a single test. Likewise, an overwhelming majority of these two groups believes that it’s not possible to judge whether a school is in need of improvement based on a school’s students’ performance on a single, statewide test. Despite this consensus of views, the federal law requires that the tests be used this way.

Local parents and administrators express similar doubts about how well one annual test can assess a child’s or school’s abilities. "I understand what the tests are supposed to be and why they exist [but] I question whether they really will measure for all children what they say they will measure," says one Cleveland-area mother of three.

Similarly, Dr. Rosemary Gornick Brickman, executive director of instruction for the South Euclid-Lyndhurst School District, says, "The most difficult part of the whole accountability and assessment system is the fact that the only way kids can demonstrate knowledge is on a paper and pencil test. If you’re a kid that isn’t good spatially or linguistically, your intelligence can be overlooked. We know that there are many, many ways children can indicate intelligence. [Education is about] trying to sustain a democracy that will have learners who love to learn." Brickman fears that the emphasis on episodic tests has caused a sacrifice of "authentic assessments that give kids a chance to demonstrate knowledge in a variety of ways" and help us develop our children into critical thinkers.

The best way for parents to manage the reality of Ohio’s assessment program is to gather information and ask questions of teachers and administrators in their children’s schools and the corresponding district. Parents can download 2003-2004 Local Report Cards for schools and districts at http://www.ode.state.oh.us/reportcard/, or they can call their district’s main office. Although parents might find the display of numbers and charts overwhelming, it serves as a starting point to understanding whether or not achievement is occurring.

To get a better handle on what information Ohio’s academic content standards say should be taught, ODE offers a series of pamphlets called A Standard Guide for Families. These publications provide a sample of what children will need to know and be able to do by the end of each grade, K through 8, in reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies. Parents can view or download the pamphlets from ODE’s website, pick it up at a local library or request it from their children’s school.

Think you might like to swap places with your kids to see what taking the tests feels like? Then visit ODE’s webpage called Proficiency and you can look at previous and practice tests. If you actually want to replicate your child’s experience, you can organize a Take the Test event with ODE’s help by emailing Beth Gianforcaro, Take the Test project coordinator, at beth.gianforcaro@ode.state.oh.us or by calling ODE’s Communications Department at (614) 728-2765.

When it comes to speaking with your children about standardized tests, child psychologist Dr. Sylvia Rimm suggests that parents, regardless of whether they believe in or like proficiencies, should "…convey to their kids that these tests are an important measure of their skills and they thus need to be taken seriously. We don't want kids to be so casual about testing so that they put down just any answers and don't care about the results."

Dr. Rimm believes the reverse is also true. "We don't want [children] to feel unnecessary pressure about the testing. If they're too anxious about the tests – that too can cause problems. I expect that most teachers will communicate to parents in a general way about the tests, but parents may want to ask teachers more specifically as to whether they are concerned about their children passing the tests." She recommends that parents wait four to six weeks before asking teachers about such concerns, since teachers spend much of the beginning of the school year determining students’ skill levels.

In addition to reviewing materials and asking questions, parents can pursue nationally coordinated efforts to improve and enhance public education.

Communities for Quality Education, www.qualityednow.org, is a nonpartisan advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. Although its flyers indicate an obvious political preference when it comes to who can best lead our country, Samantha Anderson, the group’s Media Relations Director for Ohio, urges that the group’s goal is to "fix and fund" NCLB, not abandon it. Of particular interest on the group’s website is Ohio-specific information on schools that earned an Excellent designation from the state, but haven’t met the NCLB standard of Annual Yearly Progress. If missed for two years, such schools can be labeled as failures, even though the state lists them as Excellent. The same section also shows, by Ohio county, discrepancies between NCLB expected funding and NCLB actual funding – an issue of under funding that’s afflicted districts across the country.

Finally, and especially for those who count themselves among the folks who’d love to host that Take the Test party, check out www.greatpublicschools.org. This effort, called the National Mobilization for Great Public Schools, involves thousands of house parties that will be held across the country on September 22, 2004. According to Toby Chaudhuri, Communications Director for Campaign for America’s Future, this nonpartisan effort rallies around the belief that we "can only get things done [in education] if the people closest to the classrooms speak out."

To get more information about hosting or attending a party, you can visit the website or contact Ben Smilowitz of the Campaign for America’s Future or Anna Landmark of the NEA at 202-955-5665.

Education is arguably taking a back seat to election year issues of the war on terror, the economy and health care. Now more than ever, parents should learn as much as they can, feel confident about what they know, and stay in touch with the local, state and federal education scene as it affects their kids’ futures.

Jill Miller Zimon is a Cleveland-area freelance writer and Storyteller for the KnowledgeWorks Foundation’s Small School Initiative. She lives in Pepper Pike with her husband and three children and can be reached through www.jillmillerzimon.com.