New
research from a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
has found that parents of public school students in states with more extensive
and stringent student assessment systems express lower trust in government,
less confidence in government efficacy, and more negative views of their
children’s schools, thereby threatening civic engagement and the potential for
future education reform.
In
a study, Learning Citizenship? How State Education Reforms Affect Parents’ Political Attitudes and Behavior, published by the journal Political Behavior, associate professor Jesse
Rhodes merged data from an original survey of public school parents with
quantitative measures of the scope and alignment of state standards, testing,
and accountability policies, to determine whether and how education reforms
influence the parents’ political attitudes and behaviors.
He
found that highly developed assessment policies alienate parents from
government and discourage parental involvement in education, an effect he terms
“demobilization.” Parental trust in government was 11 percent lower in states
with the most extensive assessment policies, and parental assessments of
government effectiveness were 15 percent lower, compared to states with less
developed testing polices.
Over
the past decade, federal education policies such as No Child Left Behind and
Race to the Top have led states to develop and adopt education reforms,
including content standards specifying what children should know and be able to
do, assessments measuring student progress toward those standards and systems
of policies holding schools accountable for performance. As years have passed
these policies have extended to a greater number of subjects and a wider range
of education levels, but there is considerable state-by-state variation in the
policies.
While
previous studies have examined how these policies affect student achievement,
Rhodes’ research is the first to assess how they affect the citizenship
practices of public school parents—a key education stakeholder.
“Today,
with trust in government near an all-time low, government’s authority to
accomplish collective objectives is arguably at low ebb,” Rhodes writes in the
study. “My findings indicate that standards-based reform policies may be
further threatening the foundation of public support that government needs to
function effectively.”
In
addition to their negative views of government, Rhodes also found that parents
in states with more developed assessment systems were less likely to become
engaged in some parental involvement behaviors, especially contacting teachers
and participating in school fundraisers. The likelihood that parents would
contact their children’s teachers was 17 percent lower in states with the most
stringent testing policies, and the chance they would participate in school
fundraisers was 28 percent lower. Parents residing in states with more
developed assessment systems were more likely to attend their local school
board meetings, but Rhodes argues that this involvement is stimulated by anger
and dissatisfaction with the perceived negative consequences of state
assessments.
He
argues that these policies tend to depress civic engagement among parents
because they provide few opportunities for parental input and can introduce
undesirable changes into schools.
“My
findings suggest that a major reassessment of standards, testing, and
accountability policies is necessary,” Rhodes concludes. “At a minimum,
standards-based reforms must be redesigned so that they engage parents more
directly in the process of policy design and administration and allay parental
concerns about counter-productive consequences. However, given the seriousness
of the problems identified here, it is possible that an even more searching
reevaluation of the standards-based agenda is necessary. Today, the question
for policymakers and citizens is how to design education policies that advance
the objective of high achievement for all students while strengthening the
practice of citizenship for all adults.”
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