Closing the information gap: those who support standards and accountability must do a better job of making their case to voters, policymakers, teachers and parents, and work to expand the conversation about testing, teaching and learning

Leadership, Jan-Feb, 2003 by Kurt Landgraf

In California and across the country, schools and districts are raising standards for what we want our kids--all our kids--to learn and achieve. And standardized tests are being used more often to see how well our kids ate learning. ETS has a special obligation to address those issues and enhance the public conversation about testing.

We are a non-profit company that provides substantial research and leadership in the measurement of educational performance. We certainly care about producing the highest quality tests--tests that are reliable and fair. After all, that is our business. But our heart is in improving teaching and learning. We want to see better schools and students who have a brighter future because of what they know and can do.

Everyone at ETS is keenly aware of the enormous importance and potential impact of what we do, and we are very conscious of the ever-growing burden of responsibility that we began to shoulder the moment that President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law last January. As I said before a Congressional subcommittee months before the law was enacted, I believe that the President's educational reform proposal is the right thing for our country and it is doable.

We understand the value of assessment and the vital role it should play in education reform. Well-designed assessments that are tied to standards and curriculum can provide useful information to guide instruction and help students learn. Test results can also provide useful data to guide sound education policy decisions.

But the real issue before us is NOT producing and administering another test. The challenge before us is to muster the political, moral and professional will to improve student learning and achievement. We need to provide resources and supports to help teachers teach and to help students learn and to monitor progress through well-designed assessments.

The No Child Left Behind Act calls for high standards, strong accountability and annual standards-based assessments. Results from these tests can and will provide important information that we need to more our nation--school by school--toward significant and lasting education reform. Most importantly, the results from these tests present us with the challenge--and the opportunity--to focus our efforts on closing stubbornly persistent achievement gaps among different groups of students.

Yet, I cannot overemphasize this one point: Testing alone is not enough. It is just one step in education reform. It is a misuse of tests when nothing is done to change poor results. If we take no action to improve teaching and learning, we would just be using children as "extras" in a high-profile political drama while undermining the social and political prospects of the nation in the process.

In addition to giving tests, we must take the necessary steps to help students and teachers improve classroom achievement so that the results improve the next time we test. Only then will we be able to reach our goal: an education system marked by excellence in student performance, elimination of the achievement gap, and yes, tangible evidence that no child is left behind.

I am fully convinced of the truthfulness of what I have just said, and I suspect that many of you believe this as well. Those of us who support standards-based reform, educational accountability and the use of standardized assessment to achieve those objectives have to do a much better job of making our case to voters, taxpayers, opinion leaders and public policymakers, to be sure. But, we also have to make an extra effort to reach out to teachers and parents, to answer their questions and to allay their concerns about testing and test use.

Expanding the conversation

At ETS, we've been working with groups of teachers across the country for more than 50 years to develop, score and administer a broad range of tests and other learning tools. But we need to expand that circle and that conversation--across our local schools and across our states.

This September, ETS launched a "pilot" communications and community outreach effort. Through our "Log On, Let's Talk" effort, we are inviting parents, students, educators and others to join the conversation about the role of testing in our schools.

ETS launched the first phase of this outreach effort in Sacramento and Harrisburg, Penn. The program has focused on reaching out to parents, administrators, teachers, policymakers, the press and the public generally, filling the "information gap" with answers about assessments. The outreach includes meetings with key education groups, policymakers and opinion leaders in K-12 education as well as in government and the business communities.

But beyond communicating messages proactively to an information-hungry public, the "Let's Talk" campaign is also offering people something that hasn't always been easy to come by at the grassroots and community levels: an opportunity to put questions directly to the people who make the tests.

ETS's belief that there is an information gap is based on more than instinct. Over the past year and a half, we have undertaken a vast amount of public opinion research, both qualitative and quantitative. We have produced two national surveys, added questions to surveys done by others, conducted a score of focus groups with parents and educators, and closely examined media coverage of testing issues.